In a world awash with data, investing in personal data-fueled businesses is exponentially growing. Digital Health, Fintech, Insurtech companies that are providing behaviour-based services and solutions are just a few that are trending among them. Prior to investing, however, investors need to know that these enterprises are worth the risk. In the context of personal data-fueled businesses, this means ensuring that their portfolio companies will not hit the wall due to poor data management and misuse of the data. 

Beyond the market-product fit. Details that matter.

Investors focus their attention on verifying the product-market fit and rightly so. Equally they look at the power of innovation, team execution capacity and specific technology components, such as AI to unlock the data capacity. However, (excluding those specialized in PrivacyTech, for example), verifying the scalability in managing data and privacy rightly is rarely on the top of investors’ minds.

Still, a company’s ability to properly manage its data can tell you a lot about its future. And while you are not expected to become the new privacy experts in town, evaluating certain data management criteria should help you ensure that these companies are managing the personal data they collect rightly, compliantly to relevant privacy regulations.

Asking the right questions to get the right answers:

You are only 3 Questions away to de-risk when investing in personal data-fueled businesses.

Checklist:

#1 Does the company embed a privacy-first approach in the company mind-set and product design? 

Reflecting the situation: the GDPR, CCPA and numerous changes that are being made into existing data protection regulations are a sign that most companies still are behind when it comes to embedding privacy into their digital applications.

Alongside the rising concerns around companies’ misuse of the data, the current shift in users’ tolerance with regard to the disrespect for their privacy needs to be addressed. In a “user-first” world, lacking trust results in poor business offerings, limited access and less data sharing.

No valuable data for a data-fueled business means no return in investment for an investor.

#2 Does the company master its personal data lifecycle: from collection, structure, storage, sharing and deletion?

Mastering the personal data lifecycle is what allows companies to have a proper oversight of what is happening within their organization in terms of data. For a data-driven enterprise, this is today an absolute necessity; first in regard to compliance, but also for everything else:

• Does the organization precisely understand what EXACT VALUE the collected data already brings to the organization so that they can build an efficient data monetization strategy?
• Does their system have interoperability capabilities to allow easy integration and manage diverse data-sets? Can it SCALE over time?

• Do they properly address all the current regulatory requirements? Are they ready to ADAPT to forthcoming changes?

Before investing, be sure to ask your prospective companies these few questions to ensure that they master how the personal data they collect is managed throughout their organization.

Usually, it is a good indicator that they are ready to scale overtime and thrive in the “Techs”-era.

#3 Does their technology allow for privacy-preserving globalization?

Today, legal interoperability is nothing less but a necessity to scale up any data-driven business.

Yet with the multiplication of privacy laws and related obligations as regards to data residency, growth in user base and new partnerships that imply for the data to be transferred somewhere new are only a few among the multiple scenarios that make it particularly difficult for a data privacy unconscious business to adapt afterwards.

A privacy-preserving globalization approach will help ensure that business growth opportunities won’t turn into an issue, but a success.

Why is privacy important ?

Nowadays, privacy is not about compliance only. Privacy is about data ethics, business values, and how much trust you can put into a company that collects and processes personal data.

Investment is(n’t) blind.

Like in love, a long-lasting relationship does not rely on first-sight, but trust. As you probably wouldn’t marry someone that you don’t trust, we bet you wouldn’t want to invest in a business you have doubts about.

In the same logic, when investing in a data-fueled business, better ask yourself before moving further: Would you be the one to trust this business with your family personal data?

We hope the checklist above will help you make the right choices for profitable investments.

Opt-in with Pryv

• Is any of your portfolio companies struggling to meet new data protection requirements or embed privacy into their digital solutions?
• Do you want to ensure that the companies you perform due-diligence on will not fail on managing their data rightly? Can their business scale over time and geographies?
• Do you consider investing in a technology which does scale across industries and regulations?

Pryv is a Swiss-based company, which developed and commercialized a personal data management solution. Pryv.io is specifically designed to ensure that personal data-fueled businesses can meet privacy and data protection regulatory requirements at a global scale. Since 2015, we help companies achieve GDPR and global data compliance, so that they can turn their compliance investments into a competitive advantage. Privacy-first.

Yours,
Stephanie & Evelina

Sources:

• https://medium.com/@michaeltefula/the-evolution-of-privacy-tech-611dc3f1a79f
• https://iapp.org/news/a/venture-capitalists-increasingly-investing-in-privacy-tech/

Image Credentials: christine-roy-ir5MHI6rPg0-unsplash

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Once upon a time we used to think of banking as private safes and white collars. Today, it is certainly one of the most promising areas for data-driven innovation. Each time a user pays online, it leaves behind a digital trail of information, allowing for infinite data-fueled possibilities. Yet just like banknotes, personal financial data needs to be kept safely. This means in this case: in compliance with the GDPR, Swiss DPA or any other relevant data protection regulation. 

Open Banking: Mastering privacy & consent  to unlock the personal data superpower

The growth of personal data usage is exponential and affects almost any industry. On one side of this growth, there are the users who keep calling for more on-click personalised offerings and “fluidity” of data transfer. On the other, businesses that are striving to deliver on these demands in the best possible way. Some of these businesses, however, are just kicking off in the personal data economy services accessing. This has been core for the banks and financial industries.

Banks online & payments: guardians of trust

While the pandemic casted a harsh light on the notion of personal data collection and privacy respect, it also further strengthened the boost towards contactless and online paying services. Unlike other industries operating with personal data, the banking industry is fortunate to be one step ahead when it comes to trust: people trust banks and other financial entities to safeguard their personal data more than other organizations. Perhaps for this reason, digital banks and mobile financial applications have been growing like weeds in the past few years; trust being the “magic” seed of their super-fast expansion.

« Bank 4.0: banking everywhere. Never at a bank »

As banking services are being digitized, paying cash is becoming a thing of the past. Twint, Revolut and other “one-click” solutions are becoming the new way to pay for anything, anywhere. And online banking apps are the new go-to for managing bank accounts anytime, “stay home”-compliant and safe. So, if banks were long seen as closed physical places with thick walls and locked doors, they are now becoming prime actors of the rising personal data economy. A rise reinforced by the recent introduction of Open Banking: a practice that provides third-party service providers open access to consumer banking transactions and financial data through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs).

Open Banking Poker Face: Superhero or Supervillain?

Open banking introduces a new paradigm that opens up many business opportunities. Whereas initially seen as a way to enable exchanges between financial institutions, it is now spreading faster and even beyond expectations. Unforeseen personal data offerings in a cross-industry corporation arise indeed when personal and financial data is derived and aggregated. And in a world where everything can be bought a click away, derived applications are endless. 

Applications, “Sur-mesure”.

Just to mention a few, service providers already suggest personalized offerings based on correlating financial and personal data, like targeted budgets for monthly shopping, savings and loans. Thanks to the data collected through open banking, the app can be made perfect for any user: depending on the stage of your life whether you are a student, a parent, buying property or planning retirement, it will provide you with an offer which suits you best.

Privacy-first (un)locks Open Banking

Still, if Open banking is great for business, it is also referred to as a nightmare when it comes to privacy. Especially, the system raises questions as regards to the privacy of the users whose data is being shared: do they understand what their data is being used for? Are they given the opportunity to give explicit consent as required by the GDPR? To ensure that open banking will benefit the users and not foster discrimination, strong safeguards have to be put in place.

Solution: Beyond secrecy, use Pryv.io personal data and consent management solution to enhance your users privacy.

“Personal data aggregation, sharing and processing should be as effective, secure and trustworthy as online banking.” – Pryv

If one could argue that not sharing any data would be the best solution to ensure users privacy, we beg to disagree: Privacy doesn’t have to be only secrecy. At Pryv, we envision a world where privacy is the ability to share personal data with awareness, trust and control.

“Giving explicit consent to collect and share personal data has per core requirement that users understand which data we are talking about. Trust comes with the ability to check the content of these data and the exchanges between all parties. Like banks that provide detailed reports of all transactions in time, classified in bank accounts” – Pierre-Mikael Legris, CEO of Pryv

Enhancing trust requires rethinking consent. In this new paradigm, privacy is not a compliance tick box but an opportunity to break data silos, differentiate products and services, and attract end-users with trust, transparency and empowerment.

“Pryv.io data model provides all data in “time series” contextualised and classified in streams. It is designed to provide the same readability and transparency as your bank report. So anyone could make decisions and check its execution with a minimum of effort.”

Beat the “get-user-consent” fear: start managing your users’ data exactly as the bank manages your money! Learn more about how Pryv.io can help you win users’ trust by collecting and using their personal data rightly.

Yours,
Stephanie & Evelina

Additional Sources:

• https://fintechnews.ch/open-banking/open-banking-in-switzerland-an-overview/32199/
• https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/19282/the-value-that-open-banking-brings-to-each-market-player
• https://medium.com/@nordigen/5-future-open-banking-use-cases-e5168c233bff
• https://tarabutgateway.com/open-banking-use-cases-beyond-banking/
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/data-governance-what-truly-means-manage-asset-julien-tagnon

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