James Corbett, Phil Thomson and Tom Batterbury

EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Class of 2023, New Zealand
James Corbett, Technical Co-Founder; Phil Thomson, Co-Founder and Co-CEO; and Tom Batterbury, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Auror

Share the joy of James Corbett, Phil Thomson and Tom Batterbury’s winning moment at Entrepreneur Of The Year™ New Zealand.

The co-founders of Auror are giving retailers and police new ways to prevent and solve crime.

Retail crime is on the rise worldwide, and reducing this US$150b problem is key to creating safer communities. Through Auror, Phil Thomson, James Corbett and Tom Batterbury have transformed how retailers and police report, solve and prevent crime.  

The trio left their careers with top consulting, law and technology companies in 2012 to build the world’s first retail crime intelligence software platform. Auror now works with some of the largest retailers in North America, the UK, Australia and New Zealand to prevent crime.

Historically, retail crime and loss prevention information was siloed across multiple systems. Retail stores typically managed matters in-house with their own prevention strategies, which often led to poor community outcomes with little concern for privacy. The Auror platform brings disparate information together, giving people on the front line the intel they need to reduce the impact of crime in retail stores.

Auror developed a partnership with New Zealand Police (NZP) in 2014, eventually rolling out the platform to the entire national police force and digitizing community interactions. NZP also uses intelligence from the platform to help solve other crimes, including gun and drug trafficking, kidnapping, assault, and homicide. Auror has saved NZP over 600,000 hours a year and more than NZ$30m in government funds. 

Today, with over 75,000 retail users globally and 2,000 law enforcement agencies, Auror is set to continue on its exponential trajectory.