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Basingstoke-based InfoSum gets $5m Seed top up, brings total to $8m

nick halstead

InfoSum has topped up its Seed round with an additional $5m, bringing its total raised to date to $8m.

Based in Basingstoke, the firm has created a decentralised technology to allow companies to ‘safely’ share data by allegedly removing the risks typically associated with collaborative research.

Existing backers Upfront Ventures and IA Ventures, were joined by LocalGlobe and Mosaic Ventures.

The new money will be used to build the firm’s senior management team and bring its first products to market.

InfoSum was founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneur Nick Halstead following his departure from human intelligence company DataSift, which he founded and went on to raise more than $70m from investors.

Halstead, who developed the tweetmeme and Retweet button, eventually acquired by Twitter, spoke about the risks typically associated with centralised platforms and how his new firm seeks to overcome them.

He said: “The value of data is often held within more than one company, but sharing data is a precarious endeavour because it requires data to be centralised. This makes it vulnerable to all sorts of liabilities, including re-identification which is increasingly frowned upon by regulators around the globe. Decentralised technology will disrupt how companies share and collaborate on data, obliterating the competitive barriers currently in place.”

Saul Klein, partner at LocalGlobe, commented on the firm’s potential and the reasons why he decided to participate in the round: “We all understand that data is extremely valuable in helping companies develop better, more sophisticated services. The challenge is that to unlock that potential, you’ve got to share it.

“The ability to collaborate with multiple data sources, whilst at the same time preserving its governance, security and consent, is very much the Holy Grail. The market opportunity is clear, combine that with the existing investors and the fact that Nick is one of the best minds globally when it comes to data, made getting involved a total no brainer,” Klein concluded.

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