Privacera Raises $50M To Help Companies Control Their Data

Data governance and security provider Privacera closed a $50 million Series B as it looks to build on momentum from last year with concerns about data and privacy only growing.

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The round was led by new investor Insight Partners, with participation from Sapphire Ventures, Battery Ventures, Accel, Cervin and Point 72. Founded in 2016, the Fremont, California-based company has now raised a total of $68 million.

Privacera operates at the intersection of several trends for large enterprises, said CEO Balaji Ganesan. More and more companies are becoming data driven while also migrating to the cloud, he said.

Even though these companies want to leverage data, security and privacy concerns have arisen, as enterprises need more visibility into who is accessing their data and how it is being used.

“Every company is looking at their data and making sure the right people have access to it,” he said.

Data governance

Privacera’s platform allows companies to access their data and see where it is going. The platform also lets customers set and enforce policies to control who can use data and can encrypt it.

The data governance and privacy market has significantly grown not just due to the proliferation of data and cloud migration, but also the explosion in privacy regulations enacted by countries and governing agencies that companies must follow.

The market’s growth helped Privacera expand its customer base 300 percent last year, while growing annual recurring revenue 250 percent.

“This is a very evolving space,” Ganesan said.

The market also has a growing list of competitors. Startups like San Francisco-based Okera, and legacy providers such as Varonis and IBM, all have emerged with offerings to help companies set policies to secure their data while staying in compliance with regulations.

New money

The 130-person company plans to use the new round to expand its market in both North America and Europe, and also look for new opportunities in locations like Latin America (Brazil specifically) as new regulations go into effect, Ganesan said.

Privacera will look at making possible strategic acquisitions of startups for added technologies as innovation continues to grow in the data governance and privacy space, he added.

Ganesan said he looks at the sector being able to produce one or multiple large, stand-alone companies that could eventually trade in the public market. He compared the space and its growth to what occurred in data monitoring, which produced large public companies such as Datadog and Sumo Logic.

Praveen Akkiraju, managing director at Insight Partners and now a board member at Privasera, said he could also see Privacera IPO eventually, as all companies are using data to make strategic decisions and therefore will need governance, privacy and policy.

“We believe Privacera is a foundational element of the next-generation data stack,” he said.

Illustration: Dom Guzman