{"id":17093,"date":"2019-07-11T13:35:13","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T13:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/onetrust-raises-200m-at-a-1-3b-valuation-to-help-organizations-navigate-online-privacy-rules.html"},"modified":"2019-07-11T13:35:13","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T13:35:13","slug":"onetrust-raises-200m-at-a-1-3b-valuation-to-help-organizations-navigate-online-privacy-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/onetrust-raises-200m-at-a-1-3b-valuation-to-help-organizations-navigate-online-privacy-rules.html","title":{"rendered":"OneTrust raises $200M at a $1.3B valuation to help organizations navigate online privacy rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

GDPR, and the newer California Consumer Privacy Act, have given a legal bite to ongoing developments in online privacy and data protection: it\u2019s always good practice for companies with an online presence to take measures to safeguard people\u2019s data, but now failing to do so can land them in some serious hot water<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now \u2014 to underscore the urgency and demand in the market \u2014 one of the bigger companies helping organizations navigate those rules is announcing a huge round of funding. OneTrust<\/a>, which builds tools to help companies navigate data protection and privacy policies both internally and with its customers, has raised $200 million in a Series A led by Insight that values the company at $1.3 billion.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an outsized round for a Series A, being made at an equally outsized valuation \u2014 especially considering that the company is only three years old \u2014 but that\u2019s because, according to CEO Kabir Barday, of the wide-ranging nature of the issue, and OneTrust\u2019s early moves and subsequent pole position in tackling it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about an operational overhaul in a company\u2019s practices,\u201d Barday said in an interview. \u201cThat requires the right technology and reach to be able to deliver that at a low cost.\u201d Notably, he said that OneTrust wasn\u2019t actually in search of funding \u2014 it\u2019s already generating revenue and could have grown off its own balance sheet \u2014 although he noted that having the capitalization and backing sends a signal to the market and in particular to larger organizations of its stability and staying power.<\/p>\n

Currently, OneTrust has around 3,000 customers across 100 countries (and 1,000 employees), and the plan will be to continue to expand its reach geographically and to more businesses. Funding will also go towards the company\u2019s technology: it already has 50 patents filed and another 50 applications in progress, securing its own IP in the area of privacy protection.<\/p>\n

OneTrust offers technology and services covering three different aspects of data protection and privacy management.<\/p>\n

Its Privacy Management Software helps an organization manage how it collects data, and it generates compliance reports in line with how a site is working relative to different jurisdictions. Then there is the famous (or infamous) service that lets internet users set their preferences for how they want their data to be handled on different sites. The third is a larger database and risk management platform that assesses how various third-party services (for example advertising providers) work on a site and where they might pose data protection risks.<\/p>\n

These are all provided either as a cloud-based software as a service, or an on-premises solution, depending on the customer in question.<\/p>\n

The startup also has an interesting backstory that sheds some light on how it was founded and how it identified the gap in the market relatively early.<\/p>\n

Alan Dabbiere, who is the co-chairman of OneTrust, had been the chairman of Airwatch \u2014 the mobile device management company acquired by VMware in 2014<\/a> (Airwatch\u2019s CEO and founder, John Marshall, is OneTrust\u2019s other co-chairman). In an interview, he told me that it was when they were at Airwatch \u2014 where Barday had worked across consulting, integration, engineering and product management \u2014 that they began to see just how a smartphone \u201ccould be a quagmire of information.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could capture apps that an employee was using so that we could show them to IT to mitigate security risks,\u201d he said, \u201cbut that actually presented a big privacy issue. If [the employee] has dyslexia [and uses a special app for it] or if the employee used a dating app, you\u2019ve now shown things to IT that you shouldn\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n

He admitted that in the first version of the software, \u201cwe weren\u2019t even thinking about whether that was inappropriate, but then we quickly realised that we needed to be thinking about privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dabbiere said that it was Barday who first brought that sensibility to light, and \u201cthat is something that we have evolved from.\u201d After that, and after the VMware sale, it seemed a no-brainer that he and Marshall would come on to help the new startup grow.<\/p>\n

Airwatch made a relatively quick exit, I pointed out. His response: the plan is to stay the course at OneTrust, with a lot more room for expansion in this market. He describes the issues of data protection and privacy as \u201cdeath by 1,000 cuts.\u201d I guess when you think about it from an enterprising point of view, that essentially presents 1,000 business opportunities.<\/p>\n

Indeed, there is obvious growth potential to expand not just its funnel of customers, but to add in more services, such as proactive detection of malware that might leak customers\u2019 data (which calls to mind the recently-fined breach at British Airways<\/a>), as well as tools to help stop that once identified.<\/p>\n

While there are a million other companies also looking to fix those problems today, what\u2019s interesting is the point from which OneTrust is starting: by providing tools to organizations simply to help them operate in the current regulatory climate as good citizens of the online world.<\/p>\n

This is what caught Insight\u2019s eye with this investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cOneTrust has truly established themselves as leaders in this space in a very short timeframe, and are quickly becoming for privacy professionals what Salesforce became for salespeople,\u201d said Richard Wells of Insight. \u201cThey offer such a vast range of modules and tools to help customers keep their businesses compliant with varying regulatory laws, and the tailwinds around GDPR and the upcoming CCPA make this an opportune time for growth. Their leadership team is unparalleled in their ambition and has proven their ability to convert those ambitions into reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wells added that while this is a big round for a Series A it\u2019s because it is something of an outlier \u2014 not a mark of how Series A rounds will go soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestors will always be interested in and keen to partner with companies that are providing real solutions, are already established and are led by a strong group of entrepreneurs,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cThis is a company that has the expertise to help solve for what could be one of the greatest challenges of the next decade. That\u2019s the company investors want to partner with and grow, regardless of fund timing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunchIt\/~3\/CwFSK9R0nTY\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GDPR, and the newer California Consumer Privacy Act, have given a legal bite to ongoing developments in online privacy and data protection: it\u2019s always good practice for companies with an <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-17093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enterprise-software","tag-enterprise"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t