Privacy tech
The new secret service in Europe
Last updated: 25 Nov 2021
Market 101
For companies, ensuring safe data collection and processing practices used to be primarily a matter of safeguarding their reputation from scandal: not quite an afterthought, but not a top priority either. Privacy tech was more of a pastime than a business idea, reserved for hopeless idealists tinkering away in internet forums rather than VC-backable startups — that is, until the EU introduced GDPR, the world’s most comprehensive set of data protection rules, in 2018.
Now companies are concerned with safeguarding their reputation and avoiding fines of up to 4% of their annual global turnover for mishandling data. Meanwhile, consumers are slowly coming to grips with exercising their rights as “data subjects”. In this new reality, startups are doing the essential work of explaining clunky data protection laws or engineering new ways of anonymising or encrypting data. Whether out of conviction or necessity, customers are lining up to pay.
Early stage market map
Key facts
€746m
GDPR-related fine imposed on Amazon, the highest to date1
65
Percent of the world population that will have its personal information covered by modern privacy laws by 2022 (up from 10% today)2
€960m
size of the global data privacy market in 20203
Trends to watch
1. Ensuring anonymity
→ GDPR does not apply to anonymised data, but ensuring that individuals cannot be re-identified is far from straightforward.
→ Startups are improving on various anonymisation methods, a popular one being synthetic data: computer-generated data with similar enough properties to act as a stand-in for real-world datasets.
2. Next-level encryption
→ While encryption has long been used to secure personal data, risks may arise when safely storing and processing decrypted data.
→ Using something called homomorphic encryption, it is possible to perform computations on encrypted data without decrypting it first. Due to the time and computing energy required this method is, for now, only applied to an organisation’s most sensitive data.
3. The limits of automation
→ With the proliferation of privacy laws across the world, companies can use AI to keep track of any new developments and map their data accordingly.
→ While this may reduce certain repetitive, manual tasks, it’s no silver bullet for fulfilling data subject requests or performing data protection impact assessments without human judgment.
4. Empowering data subjects
→ The rights of individuals as data subjects are central to GDPR, but consumers may not necessarily exercise them unless they are incentivised or it’s easy for them to do so.
→ This has given rise to a data-rights-as-a-service industry which removes the hassle of automating individuals’ access rights or removing their personal data from search engines.
Startups tracked by Sifted
Sifted take
Privacy tech requires an informed and concerned public to thrive, and raising awareness doesn’t happen overnight. Introducing GDPR was a first crucial step, but one that is incomplete without proper enforcement. After a slow start, regulators are now demonstrating that the law does in fact have teeth — and with consumers and companies taking note, privacy tech startups stand to benefit.
Rising stars
Offers software to categorise and secure sensitive data for automatic compliance with privacy regulations, as well as no-code integration between third party apps to share and classify company data securely.
Round
Seed
Valuation
€8.5m
Date
2020
Size
€3.5m
Offers privacy risk assessments for cloud-based applications without directly accessing companies’ databases. By scanning source codes, Bearer can then automate data mapping processes and compliance documentation over time.
Round
Seed
Valuation
€5m
Date
2018
Size
€950k
Automatically generates synthetic data by analysing sensitive datasets and creating data twins, which organisations can experiment with without facing any privacy risks.
Round
Seed
Valuation
€5m
Date
2021
Size
€1m
Early stage startups to watch
Bearer
Data governance & compliance
Data mapping
€1m
€950k
-
Better Internet Search
Privacy-first tools
Alternative search engine
€210k
€40k
€1m
Cufflink
Data governance & compliance
Data mapping
€770k
€400k
€3m
Data Legal Drive
Data governance & compliance
GDPR Compliance
€2m
€2m
-
Datagalaxy
Data governance & compliance
Data mapping
€2.2m
€2m
-
Exate Technology
Data governance & compliance
Data mapping
€2.8m
€2.8m
-
Glimpse
Privacy-first tools
Ad-tech platform
€1.5m
€1.5m
€6.5m
Hazy
Data anonymisation
Synthetic data
€6.2m
€3m
€16m
Integritee
Data anonymisation
€1.8m
€1.8m
-
Metomic
Data governance & compliance
Data mapping
€1.7m
€3.5m
-
Nymiz Software Company
Data anonymisation
€1m
€600k
€3m
Oblivious AI
Data anonymisation
€909k
€860k
-
PORT.im
Data governance & compliance
GDPR Compliance
€750k
€145k
-
Pridatect
Data governance & compliance
Data mapping
€2.2m
€1.2m
-
Pryv
Data governance & compliance
GDPR Compliance
€2.9m
€1.3m
-
Qualitadd
Data governance & compliance
GDPR Compliance
€910k
€910k
-
Quodari
Privacy-first tools
Alternative social network
€435k
€300k
€2m
Syntho
Data anonymisation
Synthetic data
€1m
€1m
€5m
Europe’s success stories
Who early stage startups are up against
(Pre-)Seed
Series A
Series B
Series C
Series D+
IPO/Exit
→ Europe’s highest-valued privacy tech startup at €354m
→ Offers data management tools for large enterprise clients like Citi, HSBC and the NHS, including deidentification and data provenance tracking
(Pre-)Seed
Series A
Series B
Series C
Series D+
IPO/Exit
→ Provides a platform that allows companies to connect to other organisations’ customer records without moving or sharing their data
(Pre-)Seed
Series A
Series B
Series C
Series D+
IPO/Exit
→ Europe’s first independent, privacy-first search engine
→ Notable features include the absence of tracking or storing queries or cookies, data encryption to avoid thirdparty interference and regular auditing from data privacy institutions
Sources
News articles
1 Why Amazon’s £636m GDPR fine really matters | August 2021 | WIRED
Defining Privacy Tech | May 2021 | Privacy & Technology
Who's funding privacy tech? | April 2021 | TechCrunch
The Problem with Automating Data Privacy Technology | May 2020 | Dark Reading
2 Gartner Predicts for the Future of Privacy 2020 | January 2020 | Gartner
Market research
3 Data Privacy Software Report 2021-2028 | June 2021 | Fortune Business Insights
Research reports
Privacy technology: What's next? | May 2021 | KPMG
2021 Privacy Tech Vendor Report | September 2021 | IAPP
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