diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 42aa567eb..8b1ea7102 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@
     "prepublish": "npm run build:css && npm run build:compile"
   },
   "dependencies": {
+    "babel-polyfill": "^6.5.0",
     "classnames": "^2.1.2",
     "extract-text-webpack-plugin": "^0.9.1",
     "filesize": "^3.1.2",
diff --git a/src/vector/index.js b/src/vector/index.js
index 0d2b19ee8..0b2395574 100644
--- a/src/vector/index.js
+++ b/src/vector/index.js
@@ -16,6 +16,10 @@ limitations under the License.
 
 'use strict';
 
+// for ES6 stuff like startsWith() that Safari doesn't handle
+// and babel doesn't do by default
+require('babel-polyfill');
+
 // CSS requires: just putting them here for now as CSS is going to be
 // refactored soon anyway
 require('../../vector/components.css');