L-R: Grant de Leeuw, Aimee Lin, Ben Shaw, Greg Daniel (DataMasque)
New Zealand data security software company DataMasque has secured $2.7 million in funding, led by Australian venture capital firm OIF Ventures with contribution from Icehouse Ventures.
DataMasque CEO Grant de Leeuw says this investment, which will go towards expanding the team globally and continuing to develop its solution, is an opportunity to “change the game” for data protection.
“While the use cases vary from masking development and testing environments to de-identifying personal information for large language model (LLM) training, the same premise applies. Organisations have an obligation to protect the customer data they have been entrusted with,” he said.
“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.”
Auckland-based DataMasque, launched in 2021, has an international focus with 75 per cent of its revenue generated across Europe, North America and Australia.
It creates data sets for organisations to use in product development and testing. This process of ‘data masking’ is used in place of real, sensitive customer data to remove potential vulnerabilities for cyber criminals to exploit.
In October 2022, the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) introduced the ISO 27001 standard for managing information security. It made including data masking as a required security control a requirement for businesses.
OIF Ventures principal Isabella Rich says DataMasque is in a “well positioned” to take advantage of this next wave in business data protection, with current clients including Best Western Hotel Group, Cohesity, global healthcare and financial services organisations and telecommunications and government agencies across Australia and New Zealand.
“Despite being only two years old, DataMasque has won enviable customers operating in highly regulated industries. We have strong experience in partnering with cyber security companies and we are excited to be on the journey with the DataMasque team,” Rich said.
Icehouse Ventures partner Barnaby Marshall said that the company is an example of an innovative local business solving a global problem.
"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,” he added.
DataMasque is a finalist in the Reseller News Innovation Awards 2023 in four categories.
