InfoSum has added USD5 million to its seed funding, taking the total raised to date to USD8 million.
Joining existing investors Mark Suster (Upfront Ventures) and Roger Ehrenberg (IA Ventures), are Saul Klein (LocalGlobe), and Mike Chalfen (Mosaic Ventures). The additional investment will be used to build the company’s senior management team and bring the company’s first products to market.
InfoSum’s goal is to equip every company with the ability to unlock the commercial potential of thousands of siloed datasets sitting in numerous companies. In doing so it will give every organisation access to the same breadth and depth of data currently considered to be the privilege of today’s super brands. Through InfoSum businesses will be able to unlock the value of their data so that they too can launch market-defining innovations.
Companies wishing to collaborate have, to date, lacked the ability to do so securely and in a way that protects the integrity of their information. Built on decentralised technology, InfoSum will help companies to broaden their understanding of their customers’ lives. Distributed data is anonymised at source, eliminating privacy risks as the data is not pooled or shared with third parties. Companies can now discover new dimensions of data whilst meeting all data protection regulations, including the GDPR.
Saul Klein, Partner, LocalGlobe, says: “We all understand that data is extremely valuable in helping companies develop better, more sophisticated services. The challenge is that to unlock that potential, you’ve got to share it. The ability to collaborate with multiple data sources, whilst at the same time preserving its governance, security and consent, is very much the Holy Grail. The market opportunity is clear, combine that with the existing investors and the fact that Nick is one of the best minds globally when it comes to data, made getting involved a total no brainer.”
Nick Halstead, Founder & CEO, InfoSum, says: “The value of data is often held within more than one company, but sharing data is a precarious endeavour because it requires data to be centralised. This makes it vulnerable to all sorts of liabilities, including re-identification which is increasingly frowned upon by regulators around the globe. Decentralised technology will disrupt how companies share and collaborate on data, obliterating the competitive barriers currently in place.”
InfoSum also announced the appointment of Nicola Walker as Chief Commercial Officer (CCO). Walker joins InfoSum from Aimia Inc where she was VP of Global Product Strategy. Most of her career has been spent in the development of consumer-driven marketing and she has also held roles at Nectar and Avois. Walker will report directly into CEO Halstead.
The company was founded by Nick Halstead in 2015 following his departure from human intelligence company DataSift, which has raised in excess of USD70 million and formed strategic partnerships with Facebook and LinkedIn. Before founding DataSift, Halstead developed tweetmeme and the Retweet button which was acquired by Twitter.
Mark Suster, Managing Partner, Upfront Ventures, says: “I’ve invested in two of Nick’s companies over the past few years – he’s a world-class technical visionary and company builder. Data privacy is front and centre of international legislation and is on the desk of CEOs globally. InfoSum is poised to be a major solution to solve data privacy and cross-company distribution.”
