Sydney early-stage venture capital firm OIF Ventures has led a $NZ2.7 million funding round for Auckland data security software company DataMasque.
The round has been supported by Auckland firm Icehouse Ventures.
DataMasque launched in 2021 and has quickly gained international sales. About 75% of revenue is now earned from outside New Zealand, primarily from Europe, North America and Australia.
The company creates data sets, which substitute for sensitive actual customer data, for organisations to use in product development and testing. This data-masking process avoids potential vulnerabilities that cyber criminals might exploit.
In October 2022, the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) introduced ISO 27001, a standard for managing information security. ISO 27001 includes a requirement for businesses to use data-masking to ensure security of customer data.
DataMasque chief executive Grant de Leeuw said the new capital would support expanding the company’s team globally and continuing to develop its technology.
De Leeuw said use cases for DataMasque software varied from masking development and testing environments to de-identifying personal information for large language model (LLM) training. The same premise applied across all uses. “Organisations have an obligation to protect the customer data they have been entrusted with,” he added.
“Having built a state-of-the-art data masking solution from the ground up gives us the unique opportunity to be on the cutting edge of global privacy technology from our base in New Zealand.”
OIF principal Isabella Rich said DataMasque is well positioned to take advantage of the next wave in business data protection having already gained customers operating in highly regulated industries.
“We have strong experience in partnering with cyber security companies and are excited to be on the journey with the DataMasque team,” she said.
Icehouse Ventures partner Barnaby Marshall said: “Sensitive data within large businesses is increasingly a desirable target of hackers. Hearing real-life stories of people that have had bank accounts defrauded, assets purchased in their name unknowingly and their identity used nefariously, made us convinced of the problem DataMasque is solving.”
Image: The DataMasque team – chief executive Grant de Leeuw, chief product officer Aimee Lin, head of engineering Ben Shaw and chief financial officer Greg Daniel.