- Consumer data startup Datacy announced it has raised $2.4 million in seed funding. These are the details.
Consumer data startup Datacy announced it has raised $2.4 million in seed funding in order to insert transparency into data exchanges and give more power and dollars back to individuals. The investors in the round include Redhawk VC, Trend Forward Capital, Truesight Ventures, Madrona Pioneer Fund, GFR Artists, Golden Seeds, APX, and the Female Founders Alliance. And several strategic angel investors also participated in the round, including Kat Orekhova (formerly of Facebook, Ironclad and CEO of Vareto) and Sarah Imbach (ex COO of PayPal, LinkedIn and 23andMe).
The company — which was founded by lawyer Paroma Indilo and software engineer Kaleb Wilson — works as a marketplace that allows users to control and get paid for their anonymized online data, and provides businesses with better, more ethically sourced consumer insights. And individual users are at the heart of Datacy’s marketplace.
How does it work? After installing Datacy’s browser extension, users select what type of data they are willing to share and who their data can be sold to. And Datacy collects, anonymizes and aggregates the users’ data, and provides richer and more accurate insights to companies in accordance with the users’ wishes. Up to 85% of the proceeds from each data sale is paid back to the users. Currently, Datacy is in private beta. But new users can request access by joining Datacy’s waitlist.
For businesses, user data is crucial to understanding customers, creating new products, and predicting trends. Despite this real need, most data on sale today is stale, incomplete, and non-compliant with user privacy regulations. And it costs businesses tens of millions of dollars to achieve data compliance.
Datacy adds efficiency and transparency to data purchasing. And granular user consent makes all of Datacy’s transactions regulatorily compliant with privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA, and its 360-degree view of a users’ journey on the web translates into unparalleled consumer insights.
Datacy plans to use the funding to open its beta to early users and business customers.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are thrilled to support Datacy as their investor and partner as they build trust, control and transparency into the murky world of big data.”
— Mickey Millsap, General Partner at Redhawk VC
“Datacy has been built from the ground up for data collection and sharing, by a team that can tackle the legal, ethical and technical challenges in the space.”
— Jörg Rheinboldt, Managing Director of APX
“Datacy is one of those rare companies that can change the world for the better, for everyone. Paroma and Kaleb are outstanding founders, and the right ones to solve this problem.”
— Leslie Feinzaig, CEO of Female Founders Alliance
“Data is increasingly becoming the currency that powers modern business practices. Our aim is to give businesses clean, ethically collected data, and to allow individuals to share in the wealth that is created from their data.”
— Paroma Indilo
