Privitar, a new British tech firm looking to transform the way organisations use sensitive personal or private information, has closed a $1m+ seed funding round.
Privitar attracted over $1m of seed financing in an oversubscribed funding round from investors including: Tom Glocer and Sir Peter Job (both former chief executives of Reuters), Rockspring CEO David Gammon and David Cleevely, founder of Abcam, Cambridge Angels and the Centre for Science and Policy in Cambridge, and co-founder, Gerard Buggy who is CTO of First Derivatives.
Jason du Preez, co-founder and CEO of Privitar, said: “In a world where everything from cars to credit cards are connected to the Internet, companies can collect and analyse enormous amounts of consumer information to offer more personalised products and improve customer service.
“But, with the enormous opportunity of Big Data comes even greater responsibility. The reality is that we gain the most from cutting edge analytics if we can safely expose sensitive data.
“We’ve found a way to satisfy an individual’s need for privacy alongside an organisation’s desire to predict and capitalise on behaviours through big data analytics.”
Tom Glocer, investor in Privitar, added: “Operating all over the globe, Reuters has long been concerned with balancing privacy and access to high value data. As the last two chief executives of Reuters Group PLC, Sir Peter and I recognise the significant commercial value of Privitar’s innovative technology.”
Privitar is already working with leading institutions in financial services, telco and the Internet of Things and, ultimately, aims to act as a ‘stamp of approval’ for companies, which demonstrates good data security and privacy practice with high data protection compliance standards.