Source: aithority.com
Duality Technologies, a leading provider of Privacy-Enhancing Data Science Solutions based on Homomorphic Encryption, announced it has raised $16 million in a Series A funding round. The strategic funding was led by Intel Capital with the participation of Hearst Ventures and continued support from existing investor Team8.
The Duality SecurePlus™ platform is the first market-ready solution addressing today’s most pressing data privacy challenges arising from enterprises’ need to collaborate on sensitive data by applying Machine Learning and AI-based analytics. As the data-driven economy expands rapidly in all market segments, Duality’s platform enables multiple parties to maximize data utility by collaborating on sensitive data while preserving privacy, in compliance with growing data privacy regulations.
Duality’s SecurePlus™ platform optimizes data science computations on homomorphically encrypted data, delivering scalable privacy-enhanced solutions addressing real-world market needs, and overcoming performance challenges which until recently were considered “impossible”. Privacy-preserving data science is critical in today’s world as numerous enterprises, across all regulated industries, work with partners on data analytics endeavors: from banks seeking to apply privacy-enhanced financial crime investigations across institutions and borders, to retailers and their supply chain partners interested in privacy-preserving data monetization collaborations, to scientists cooperating on rare diseases and genomics research. SecurePlus™ enables aggregating and analyzing highly sensitive data while preserving patients’ privacy and the collaborators’ IP.
“AI and Machine Learning are transforming countless industries, but they have also created new privacy challenges that regulation alone can’t solve,” said CEO and Co-Founder of Duality Technologies Dr. Alon Kaufman. “We are excited by the investment of Intel Capital, Hearst Ventures and Team8 in Duality, and look forward to collaborating with these industry leaders in delivering innovative Privacy-Enhanced solutions to the market. Our mission is to reconcile data utility and privacy while unlocking a whole new world of secure collaborative business opportunities for our customers.”
“The ability to secure data during analysis is a critical component in the future computation stack, specifically in the context of AI. Intel Capital has been following the space closely, and we are excited to see secure computing and homomorphic encryption becoming practical and broadly applicable,” said Anthony Lin, Vice President & Senior Managing Director of Intel Capital. “We believe privacy-preservation in AI and ML represents a huge market need, and we’re investing in Duality because of its unique founding team and world-leading expertise in both advanced cryptography and data science.” Investment Director, Roi Bar-Kat, led the investment for Intel Capital.
This funding comes in the wake of the recent collaboration between Duality and Intel: In June 2018, the two announced a collaborative effort to explore the security challenges of AI workloads using homomorphic encryption on Intel platforms with the goal of minimizing data exposure. In August 2019, Intel, Duality and other tech leaders convened the AI community for a homomorphic encryption (HE) standards workshop to accelerate market adoption of the technology across industries.
“As a leading global, diversified media, information and services company with more than 360 businesses across industries, we are acutely aware of the increasing importance of data and data collaboration in companies across many market segments,” said Kenneth Bronfin, Senior Managing Director of Hearst Ventures. “Sensitive data is constantly being generated by both individuals and businesses; there needs to be technology available that protects such data while allowing us to extract insights. We are excited by Duality’s mission and its ability to deliver complex technology to real-world use cases and applications.”
Duality was co-founded by scientific leaders including Turing Award winner Professor Shafi Goldwasser; MIT’s Prof. Vinod Vaikuntanathan, the co-inventor of the foundational BGV Homomorphic Encryption scheme; and Dr. Kurt Rohloff, founder of the PALISADE Homomorphic Encryption open source library on which Duality’s platform is based; together with Dr. Alon Kaufman, CEO, and Ms. Rina Shainski, Chairwoman. The outstanding expertise in cryptography is complemented by the team’s strong background in data science, powering Duality’s innovative approach to privacy-enhanced data science solutions.
Duality will leverage the funding to continue developing its secure computing platform, offering privacy-enhanced solutions addressing customer needs in a wide variety of market segments.