# VenueSafe case study

> How Matthew Blode co-founded and built VenueSafe, a COVID contact-tracing platform that served more than 1M Australians and was acquired by me&u.

*Co-founder & CTO · 2020–2021 · me&u / Mr Yum*

Published May 18th, 2026

Built during the 2020 lockdowns, VenueSafe served more than 1M Australians and was acquired by me&u six months in.

## Metrics

- **1M+**: Australians served
- **6 months**: Idea to acquisition
- **2021**: Acquired by me&u
- **3 repos**: Product stack

## Context

Venues in 2020 needed a practical way to collect visitor details and stay open under public-health rules. It had to be fast, reliable, and obvious to operators and customers with no patience for software.

## What I built

I built the whole stack: a Craft and Vue marketing site, an Express and MariaDB backend, a React client, Stripe billing, and analytics dashboards. Ship the useful version, then handle the edge cases as they arrive.

## Outcome

More than 1M Australians used VenueSafe, and me&u acquired it six months after the idea. I joined as a senior engineer, helped scale the platform to 15M+ users, and supported the US launch from Austin.

## FAQ

### What was VenueSafe?

VenueSafe was a COVID contact-tracing platform for Australian venues and hospitality businesses.

### Who acquired VenueSafe?

VenueSafe was acquired by me&u, formerly Mr Yum, after going from idea to acquisition in six months.

### What happened after the acquisition?

I joined me&u as a senior software engineer, helped scale the platform to 15M+ users globally, and supported the US expansion from Austin, Texas.

## Sources

- [VenueSafe archive](https://venuesafe.netlify.app/)
- [About Matthew Blode](https://blode.co/about)
- [Projects](https://blode.co/projects)