Detroit’s Guardhat Doubles Revenue, Expands Reach in 2021

Guardhat, a connected workers solutions company based in downtown Detroit, today announced it doubled its revenue year-over-year in 2021 and ended the year with more than $30 million in orders under contract.
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Detroit's Guardhat announced it doubled its revenue in 2021, expanded its service and product offerings, and started various partnerships. // Courtesy of Guardhat
Detroit’s Guardhat announced it doubled its revenue in 2021, expanded its service and product offerings, and started various partnerships. // Courtesy of Guardhat

Guardhat, a connected workers solutions company based in downtown Detroit, today announced it doubled its revenue year-over-year in 2021 and ended the year with more than $30 million in orders under contract.

The platform has seen strong growth among high-risk industrial operations, including the oil and gas, chemical, construction, mining and metals, energy, and manufacturing industries. The digital offering provides real-time risk management and reporting capabilities, as well.

“Our platform creates the IIoP – or Industrial Internet of People – for live insight into what workers face with the ability to connect, support, and collaborate in real-time,” says Saikat Dey, co-founder and CEO of Guardhat. “We expect to keep this momentum up by putting the frontline worker at the center of our strategy. We forecast two to three times revenue growth with margins greater than 75 percent in the years ahead.”

Beyond revenue and orders in 2021, Guardhat grew its team, user base, and ecosystem of partnerships; secured a patent for its social-distancing application; earned intrinsically safe certifications for its innovative wearable tech; and raised more than $18 million in a Series B round of financing.

In the past year, Guardhat kicked off new projects across multiple industries and continents, with customers including Barton Malow, Caterpillar, Big River Steel, Ferrovial, Jardine Schindler, Snap-on, U.S. Steel, two of the largest freight rail networks in North America, one of the world’s largest lumber companies, and others.

“The market response Guardhat is seeing aligns with what we’ve seen at a macro level,” says Peter Bussey, principal research analyst, sustainability, EHS, and connected frontline workforce at LNS Research. “The pandemic brought a resurgence of the EHS business function and the crucial role it plays in risk mitigation.

“But we are also seeing EHS transformation projects offering a greater ROI at an operational level. Those leading the pack see 6.8 percent to 18.5 percent better relative performance versus laggards on key operations and financial metrics like net profit margin, capacity utilization, and more.”

Guardhat hired more than 30 new employees in 2021, with more to come in 2022. New leadership hires include Doug Matthews as chief growth officer; Nirmal Chudgar as chief product officer; Praveer Kumer as president of engineering, product, and operations; Sarah Kalhorn as chief marketing officer; and Tim Shield as vice president of platform strategy and sales.

The company expanded its relationship with Siemens with a co-deployment in Singapore. Additionally, Guardhat partnered with domain expert integrator CB Technologies, global safety solutions provider United Safety, and joined the Deloitte Smart Factory at Wichita initiative to further expand sales, deployment, and support for customers.

This year also saw integrations with a wide array of leading devices to expand capabilities and adoptability for the Guardhat solutions, including:

  • New connected safety devices, including devices from Extronics, Equivital, and a leading LoRaWAN device designed for intrinsically safe environments.
  • Rombit collision avoidance solutions.
  • Two leading dosimeters for mobile radiation dosage detection.
  • RKI Instruments mobile gas detectors, as well as three other leading mobile gas detectors.
  • RealWear assisted reality wearable devices.
  • Vuzix hands-free assisted reality smart glasses.
  • The BioTrac biometric bands from SlateSafety.