As the daughter of a Metropolitan Police officer, Emma Kay grew up with plenty of advice on how to stay safe outside.
And yet, her experience from her teenage years onward has been one shared by many women. Catcalling, being followed, groping and flashing made Kay and so many others fear walking the streets – particularly at night.
Kay’s own experience, as well as the stories she heard while volunteering at a community centre, made her realise that personal safety is something every woman must think about.
Meet WalkSafe
In 2020 Kay co-founded WalkSafe, whose flagship app provides a suite of tools designed to make users feel safe making journeys alone. WalkSafe+ launched in 2022 and informs a trusted person when the user has reached their planned destination.
The app also allows a user who is planning to go out to set an expected return time in their home. If that user is not back in the designated geofenced area, the app will notify loved ones.
Kay said the two most used features are Follow Me, which allows a trusted party to follow a user’s journey with no predetermined end destination – such as a casual walk or run – and the safety map, which shows users locations with established safety procedures such as Ask for Angela.
Kay said the app was filling a gap in trust that people, particularly women, feel with authorities like the police.
“There are issues within certain police forces, there’s a lot of mistrust,” said Kay.
“Now more than ever, people are reaching for tools and resources, because they don’t feel safe turning to those bodies that they previously did.”
According to the WalkSafe co-founder, the team has noticed a recent rise in the app’s crime-reporting functionalities, despite it not being one of the primary features marketed by the startup.
“It is always staggering to see how many crime reports that we get nationally,” Kay said.
“People want to be able to anonymously report, and they want to feel like they’re doing something for the wider community but they don’t want to go to the police.”
Kay founded WalkSafe with her brother-in-law, who provided the tech expertise to complement her ideas and marketing experience.
The founding team made the decision early on to “never charge the user” because they did not want to “put a price on personal safety”.
WalkSafe does offer a pro version of the app to enterprises, which links with users’ free apps and allows companies to monitor the safety of commutes.
Other revenue-generating products from the company include crime analysis and sponsorship deals. Participating businesses on the app’s safety map – provided they meet the requirements – can pay to have their branding featured.
Early Impact is a monthly UKTN series profiling early-stage startups that are solving societal problems.
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