Brussels-based data privacy startup secures €1M to help consumers create, control their own data; here’s how

In an interview with New York Times, Tim Berners-Lee, one of the most important people of the 20th century and the mastermind behind the World Wide Web stated that big platforms have too much power and they are built on too much personal data. Too many players are trying to gather too much data, thereby putting consumers and companies at risk. A better way to curb this risk is to give consumers the control over their own data and the ability to choose who to share that data with. That’s the purpose behind this Brussels-based data privacy startup Datavillage.

Secures €1M funding

In a recent move, Datavillage secured €1M funding in a mix of equity and grants along with the regional aid for research and innovation. The company will use the fresh funds to grow its team with key talent. “At the moment we’re working on various pilots of personal artificial intelligence and we’re finalizing our platform in order to bring it to the right maturity for industrialisation by the end of this year. In order to handle the growing demand, we’re looking for experienced, top-notch believers to join our quest,” says Quentin Felice, co-founder of Datavillage.

Digital twin to store personal data

The Belgian startup aims to give back control of their personal data to the user, thereby bringing about complete transparency and ensure respect for their privacy. This is a vision shared and evangelised by internet luminaries including Tim Berners-Lee. Datavillage ensures that personal user data is safe by creating a digital twin of each customer. The personal data will be stored in this digital twin that the consumers can manage themselves.

Consumers can let companies access their digital twin to provide personalised services such as content preferences. This way, they can have control over their own data.

Reduces time and cost for organisations

Besides customers, this also benefits businesses relying on data. It lets businesses extract value sans any burden and risk rather than controlling and processing it themselves. The use and sharing of personal data via end-users lets organisations save a lot of time and manage personal user data in a compliant way. Many big players have made this user-centric data approach their core business and a majority of their revenue relies on collecting and processing personal data.

In addition to time, this approach also reduces the cost they spend on managing personal data. “Instead of controlling and processing all these data themselves, organisations can extract value without the burden of managing personal data and reduce the risk in regards to regulations”, explains Frederic Lebeau, co-founder of Datavillage. “They can focus on their products and services and they can even make this an advantage by being more transparent with their consumers in regards to privacy.”

The user-centric data approach also lets smaller organisations come together in user-centric data ecosystems. They can combine their services to consumers to make sure they are competitive compared to leading internet giants.

About Datavillage

Datavillage, founded in 2019 by Quentin Felice and Frédéric Lebeau, is an early-stage startup based in Belgium. It works with the mission to unlock the value of personal data for both the companies and their consumers following 3 values: user control, user privacy and transparency.

Datavillage provides an end-to-end user-centric data management platform combined with key concepts including personal data store, decentralised consent and data cage for getting access to personal data and processing it in respect of privacy. The company merges behavioural data, artificial intelligence and semantic knowledge graph in order to create data matchmaking between products data and personal data. These new derived data brings new opportunities for organisations to create new innovative products & services.