Privacy Analytics, which specializes in data anonymisation, has raised $3.5m in a seed round led by Vanedge Capital, a Vancouver, Canada-based venture capital fund. As part of the deal, Vanedge’s managing partner Paul Lee will join Privacy Analytics’ board of directors.
The company previously raised $1.4m in November 2012, in a round including Canadian venture capital fund BDC IT Venture Fund and MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund. In October 2010, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research also made an equity investment, however the size remains undisclosed.
Privacy Analytics was spun out of the Canadian institution University of Ottawa (not to be confused with the American institution Ottawa University) in 2007, following its incubation at the research institute of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario – the university’s teaching hospital. Since its incorporation, the startup has managed to attract half of Fortune 50 healthcare companies, among other clients.
Its software, dubbed Parat, provides an automated solution to anonymise data. This makes it easier for healthcare companies to comply with regulations concerning the storage and sharing of patient data.
Khaled El Emam, founder and chief executive at Privacy Analytics, said: “We are thrilled to be working with Paul [Lee] and Vanedge, whose team brings deep expertise to help our company grow and scale. The funding enables us to accelerate building richer functionality into our Parat product line, while expanding our efforts to enable companies to manage and govern the privacy and sharing of big data in healthcare and financial sectors.”
