Aircloak closes Seed Investment and Receives Approval for GDPR-level Anonymity from French Data Protection Authority

Various technology developments have led to the birth of Big Data; organizations collecting, analyzing and sharing increasing amounts of information – much of it unstructured and personal data. This resulted in increased data security risks such as exposing Personally Identifiable Information (PII).At the same time companies are faced with ever increasing regulatory pressure, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which comes into effect in May 2018 and includes penalties that can reach €20 million or 4% or annual global turnover – whichever is higher.

GDPR applies not just to European companies, but to companies globally that collect personal information in Europe. In fact, GDPR compliance is a top data protection priority for 92% of US organizations, according to a recent PwC survey.

What’s needed are secure, automated and easy to manage technology solutions that protect privacy by design.

Aircloak Insights Solution

For marketers, data analysts, and privacy professionals, Aircloak’s solution enhances data privacy protection, simplifies regulatory compliance processes, and reduces compliance costs. In addition, the solution allows for higher quality analytics and real-time insights as (structured and unstructured) data does not need to be anonymized prior to analysis or machine learning.

The technology behind Aircloak Insights is based on research from the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems and allows even tightly regulated companies such as financial services organizations, healthcare companies, communications providers and data brokers to:
– Combine sensitive/private data from multiple (third party) sources for higher quality insights
– Securely share fully anonymized real-time analytics with customers and partners
– Have a transparent, future-proof and fully compliant solution that meets regulatory requirements

Together, these leads to one-click access to useable anonymous data.

GDPR Compliant

To build trust with customers and partners, Aircloak has published its Diffix methodology for public review. In addition, the French data protection authority CNIL evaluated Aircloak’s solution and determined that it satisfies the criteria GDPR-level anonymization.

“Aircloak’s objective is to help customers gain high-quality and real-time insights from strongly anonymized data, not pseudonymized data sets, in the most secure and compliant way. We continue to enable new use cases as we engage more customers,” says Felix Bauer, co-founder and CEO of Aircloak, “and in the process, help our customers reduce their costs and complexity of compliance.”

Aircloak Insights is deployed by a range of organizations, including German financial services organizations.

“The technology to anonymize data sets for analysis and sharing has not fundamentally changed in decades,” says Marcel van der Heijden, Partner at Speedinvest. “Sharing data sets has become a liability, and Aircloak achieved a breakthrough allowing companies to use all unstructured and real-time data while their customer’s privacy stays fully protected by design.”

About Aircloak

Aircloak was founded in 2014 by Felix Bauer (CEO), Sebastian Probst Eide (CTO) and Prof. Paul Francis to commercialize and build on privacy protection research done at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems. Today the company has licensed its solutions to financial services organizations, and communications providers and works with healthcare organizations.

Aircloak website: www.aircloak.com
Aircloak on Twitter: www.twitter.com/aircloak

About Constantia New Business

Constantia New Business invests in technology startup companies addressing B2B markets with sustainable products, preferably in the fields of information technology and industries/technology fields that are experiencing disruption through IT as well as advanced manufacturing and performance materials. www.ciag-cnb.at.

About Speedinvest

Speedinvest is a venture capital fund founded in 2011 with $100M under management that invests in European early stage technology startups. Besides providing financial investments, Speedinvest actively deploys its network and know-how to support its portfolio companies. Through its Silicon Valley office, Speedinvest operationally supports portfolio companies entering the US market. www.speedinvest.com.

About Max Planck Society

The Max Planck Society is Germany’s most successful research organization. Since its establishment in 1948, no fewer than 18 Nobel laureates have emerged from the ranks of its scientists, putting it on a par with the best and most prestigious research institutions worldwide. The more than 15,000 publications each year in internationally renowned scientific journals are proof of the outstanding research work conducted at over 80 Max Planck Institutes – and many of those articles are among the most-cited publications in the relevant field.

As the technology transfer organization of the Max Planck Society, Max Planck Innovation is the link between industry and basic research. The interdisciplinary team advises and supports scientists in assessing inventions, filing patent applications, as well as founding companies. The company offer industry centralized access to innovations of the Max Planck Institutes.
http://www.max-planck-innovation.de/en/

About Elephant and Castle

Elephant & Castle Capital partners with entrepreneurs and growth companies to provide capital and advice, particularly in the area of intellectual property. The firm can leverage its international network from world leading institutions including Goldman Sachs, Rothschild, McKinsey & Company, Rocket Internet, Eisenführ&Speiser, as well as European private and institutional investors. www.eac.vc