Ethyca CEO Cillian Kieran. Image: Ethyca
Ethyca, which is led by Irish engineer Cillian Kieran, has raised a total of $20m for its data privacy technology.
Today (11 June), Ethyca announced that it has raised $13.5m in Series A funding to automate data privacy and compliance for businesses. To date, the New York-based start-up has raised a total of $20m.
Ethyca, which was previously featured in our Start-up of the Week series, was co-founded by Irish engineer Cillian Kieran with Miguel Burger-Calderon.
Investors in the start-up’s latest funding round include IA Ventures, SciFi VC, Michael Ovitz, Behance co-founder Scott Belsky, Abstract Ventures, and Warby Parker co-founders Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa, among others. The company previously raised $4.2m in seed funding in July 2019.
‘Complex web of privacy regulations’
Founded in 2018, Ethyca’s data privacy technology platform was created to make it easier to build ethical data-driven systems and businesses. It lets companies discover sensitive data, then provides a mechanism for customers to see, edit or delete their own data from the system.
Ethyca aims to help companies comply with privacy legislation such as GDPR in Europe and California’s CCPA regulation, which will be enforced form 1 July.
“Right now companies are concerned with applying a ‘band aid’ for the likes of GDPR and CCPA to avoid risk of fines, but are not thinking holistically about what our industry is facing,” said Kieran, who is CEO of the company.
“Not only is it necessary to comply with the increasingly complex web of privacy regulations globally, but it’s more and more important to consumers that the services they use respect and manage their data ethically.”
Roger Ehrenberg of IA Ventures said: “Companies can no longer simply strive to be compliant and get by – enterprises need to think long term and show their customers that they can be trusted with their data.
“Forward-thinking companies have recognised the value of Ethyca’s product to their bottom line as you can see from looking at the growing set of blue-chip brands and technology customers so far.”
New product development
Ethyca also said that it is launching a new self-service product that businesses can begin using for free to automate privacy compliance.
The start-up said that it will now allow businesses of all sizes to implement comprehensive privacy management with a few clicks and without a lengthy onboarding process.
Its premium product, Ethyca Pro+, is now being used by brands such as Away, Parachute Home and AspireIQ.
