Aclaimant CEO: We Want to Help Every Business Be an Expert Risk Manager
Aclaimant, an insight-driven workflow platform for safety and risk management, recently announced that it raised $15 million in Series B equity and debt funding led by Next Coast Ventures. Aclaimant's Series B financing follows a year of significant growth and momentum. In 2020, Aclaimant reported its best revenue and increase in customers on record. The company's monthly active users in the platform and system usage increased by over 400% in 2020.
The company will use the new funds to double down on product innovation, increase hiring across all departments, accelerate client acquisition and sales as well as marketing and partnership development. Aclaimant will continue to add key talent across the risk management spectrum to grow and expand its in-house subject matter expertise.
To find out how its technology will give hotels and restaurants a fighting chance during one of the most litigious times in history, Hospitality Technology spoke with David Wald, CEO and co-founder, Aclaimant.
What type of hotel/restaurant tech investments/initiatives did Aclaimant use its Series A funding for?
Our Series A funding was used primarily to enhance our core system and lay the foundation for the future of our business. This included the launch of Aclaimant Insights, an AI and predictive modeling solution designed to help businesses identify potential risks and know how their claims will be resolved to keep employees safe and avoid taking on additional risk. Since our Series A funding, Aclaimant has had the opportunity to create products to assist hospitality and other businesses with their reopening efforts while remaining compliant with state and federal guidelines.
How will Aclaimant use its series B funding to innovate in tech for hotels/restaurants?
With our new capital, we’re looking to shape the future of risk management for hotels and restaurants and the hospitality industry as a whole. We want to help every business be an expert risk manager by enabling them with the tools and technology to do so. We’re continuing to add to the foundational pieces we built with our Series A funding, including enhanced AI to draw insights in real-time, and expanded connectivity and integrations so customers can gain visibility across their organizations at any given time. We want to ensure aspects of risk management such as compliance don’t become a burn on the business. We’re continuing to expand our use cases within the platform to allow businesses to manage a new myriad of risks they face every day. Whatever happens next, we want to be the system that keeps employees safe as businesses navigate the world of insurance claims.
What kind of problems are hotel and restaurant workers facing as they return to work?
Businesses in the hospitality industry have been facing the same problem since the onset of the pandemic: determining out how to get their services to their customers in a safe and sanitary way – whether it’s someone eating a burger at their favorite neighborhood nook or staying in a hotel for a weekend getaway. Over the past year, these organizations had to determine their playbook for implementing safe, secure workplaces while adhering to state and federal guidelines to avoid litigation. Guidelines from OSHA and CDC have been constantly changing, and only a handful of states have mandated their own COVID-19 safety protocols. Businesses have had to determine these protocols on their own, creating an additional challenge to keeping their doors open.
Active risk management combined with safety protocols is crucial for the hospitality industry to ensure the safety and health of employees and patrons. Companies can do this by utilizing technology to assist in this process and support everything from tracking COVID-19 exposure and vaccination roll out for employees to keeping tabs on ever-changing regulations all in one dashboard. Technology also allows hotels and restaurants to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to managing risk, which is more important than ever to plan for future unexpected events.
What kinds of litigation are hotels and restaurants facing?
The hospitality industry, like businesses in many industries, are facing one of the most litigious periods in our history due to the pandemic. Failure to comply with such OSHA, CDC and federal or state guidelines can result in lost businesses and direct liability costs and litigation exposure that may not be covered by insurance. Hotels and restaurants must recognize the consequences and anticipate them to mitigate potential risks and deliver customer satisfaction each and every day.
The number one way or the best way they can avoid this litigation is by documenting everything. Having documentation – ideally in an automated workflow system – of daily employee screening to incident reporting and preparedness plans protects the business from legal challenges down the line. Businesses in the hospitality industry should operate under the assumption that if they can’t prove what actions were taken, then it is presumed that the action didn’t happen at all.