We have seen compliance startup heyData, and security and compliance automation platform RegScale secure funding. Trailing behind these startups, DataGuard, a German compliance software startup focused on data privacy and information security, has landed €61 million in Series B funding. This round takes the total investment raised by the company to €80 million in the past two and a half years.
Expansion and development plans
The financing round was led by San Francisco-based Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital and existing investor One Peak. The round also saw participation from strategic angel investors, including SaaS unicorn founders Bastian Nominacher (co-founder / co-CEO of Celonis), Hanno Renner (co-founder / CEO of Personio), and Carsten Thoma (co-founder of Hybris), and Kreos Capital.
In the first couple of years, DataGuard was bootstrapped without institutional capital. Later, it raised a Series A investment in 2020, acquired a UK-based consent and preference management software business, and launched in new geographies. The funding will be used to further accelerate its product development and its expansion across Europe and the US.
DataGuard was founded to help SME and corporates navigate this reality. Thomas Regier, co-founder and co-CEO at DataGuard, said: “We exist to help organisations build trust. And we’re delighted to be the trusted partner to over 3,000 customers operating all over the globe. With millions of businesses subject to ever-changing legislation and technology, we believe that this is just the beginning. The capital we raised will be used to help many more organisations achieve their business goals through stronger compliance and security.”
Kivanc Semen, co-founder and co-CEO at DataGuard, said: “Organisations of all sizes are handling vast amounts of data across countless processes. Privacy, infosec and compliance are inextricably linked – and customers do not want several point solutions but rather a single vendor that offers them a fully integrated experience. This fundraise will turbocharge the further development of our solution, bringing more workflow automations, integrations and selected product partner offerings (such as penetration testing) to the DataGuard platform.”
Lincoln Isetta, Managing Director of Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital said, “It is clear from our diligence that DataGuard’s unique, all-in-one platform allows customers to move beyond simple ‘check-the-box’ compliance, information security and data privacy practices and instead manage data as a competitive differentiator. We are thrilled to be joining the DataGuard team and look forward to helping them build on their success.”
David Klein, Managing Partner at One Peak, and Christoph Mayer, Partner, added: “DataGuard has helped create a new category that is both extremely sizeable and business-critical. Over the next decade, companies will invest tens of billions of dollars into compliance and security to become and remain trusted partners. We were the first institutional investor in DataGuard back in 2020, and we are thrilled to be doubling down on our investment to support the Company in further accelerating its growth trajectory and expanding its geographical reach.”
All-in-one compliance and security platform
Given that data privacy, information security, and compliance are gaining the traction of regulators, enterprises, and consumers globally, Thomas Regier and Kivanc Semen founded DataGuard in 2018. The SaaS platform now helps over 3,000 organisations implement privacy, information security, and compliance.
Customers use DataGuard’s solution to achieve compliance with national and international regulations and obtain industry-standard certifications, including GDPR, CCPA, ISO 27001, TISAX, SOC 2, and more. Its customer base includes SMEs, with many being fast-growing scaleups such as Taxdoo, Flipdish, and Xentral, as well as corporate customers such as ABB, Canon, SUSE and Unicef.
Its end-to-end solution drastically reduces the time and money companies spend to keep their personal data protected, their information and assets secure, and their business processes compliant. This enables them to build trust, mitigate risks, prevent breaches, and achieve their business goals. The company has offices in Munich, Berlin, London, and Vienna.
