Secure data sharing platform InfoSum nabs $65M

InfoSum, a New York City-based startup providing a decentralized platform for secure data sharing, today announced that it closed a $65 million series B funding round led by Chrysalis Investments. The proceeds bring the company’s total raised to $90 million, and president Lauren Wetzel says that they’ll be put toward doubling the size of the company’s engineering team, growing sales and customer operations, and expanding into new regions.

A majority of data sits in private hands. Gartner predicts that by 2025, 50% of large organizations will adopt privacy-enhancing data computation techniques. Moreover, by 2025, 80% of data worldwide is expected to reside in enterprises, and the global data economy is pegged at $3 trillion.

Aligning with the trends, InfoSum, which launched in 2019, offers a data collaboration platform that uses “privacy-first technology” to connect customer records between companies without sharing any data. According to Wetzel, InfoSum can operate in real time and allows rapid querying for optimal results, accelerating processes that normally slow go-to-market.

“InfoSum has capitalized on an uncertain regulatory landscape and emerging consumer consciousness on data privacy to provide software to ensure that consumer data is handled safely,” Wetzel told VentureBeat via email. “Customers can establish partnerships for collaboration far quicker than the average industry standards, often creating new identity connectivity in 2 to 3 weeks.”

Preserving privacy

Nick Halstead founded InfoSum, which competes with Cape Security, Enveil, Opaque, TripleBlind, Duality Technologies, and others, in 2015 with a vision to connect the world’s data without ever sharing it. Some of the company’s earliest use cases started in data onboarding, data “clean room” solutions, and brands working directly with publishers, but InfoSum has since expanded to include internal use cases like connecting disparate databases within an enterprise and data co-ops like retail media networks.

According to Wetzel, over 60 financial services, retail, health care, gaming, and entertainment brands use InfoSum to connect internal data and better understand customers and plan customer experiences. The platform enables them to leverage data assets across multiple businesses for product and service development, creating what Wetzel calls “privacy-first ecosystems.”

“Since our last funding round, we’ve scaled in terms of customers, and with every new customer we start to see customers getting more active in sharing ways they are using the platform. We’ve seen a number of new changes implemented thanks to our customers opening up on how they’ve utilized InfoSum’s solutions,” Wetzel added. “Throughout the pandemic, InfoSum has seen a surge in business with revenue more than tripling, the employee base more than doubling, and an expansion into Central Europe and throughout North America.”

InfoSum has 80 employees currently and expects to have 140 by 2022 spread across its offices in the U.S., the U.K., and Germany.

In a statement, Halstead said, “InfoSum recognized early on the need for new technology in data privacy. Now as the market leader in data collaboration, this investment from Chrysalis allows us to accelerate the development of our unique infrastructure and expand its innovative capabilities into new arenas.”