ANZ’s venture arm, 1835i, backs data collaboration startup DataCo Technologies

A data sharing startup DataCo Technologies has emerged out of ANZ Bank’s VC and innovation arm, 1835i, to help businesses organisations safely test and realise the value of collaborating on data. 

The DataCo Collaboration Platform allows organisations to connect and collaborate on customer data, leveraging the latest privacy enhancing and data protection technologies to remove the need for data to ever be directly shared. 

The concept was developed inside the 1835i Creation Lab, launching in April this year after 12 months development work. 

DataCo Technologies co-founder Danny Tyrrell said his own experiences in trying to deliver data partnerships for large enterprises, made him realise the multiple challenges faced by the organisations involved, including data risks, being initially unclear about the value of partnership, and staying responsive to evolving rules around consent.

“These challenges, particularly concerning protecting consumer privacy and commercially sensitive data, have previously restricted data sharing for many organisations,” he said. 

“We saw that the potential value that can be achieved through a data partnership is not always immediately clear, so we wanted to find a way for organisations to gain clarity before making any major investments.”

The DataCo team initially set out to find a solution to deliver some specific data sharing use cases, however, none of the individual technology solutions found addressed the range of challenges that need to be resolved to deliver scalable and repeatable enterprise data partnerships.

Tyrrell said the platform uniquely connects customer consent to secure enterprise data collaboration so that consumers and organisations are always in control of how their data is used, by who, and for what purpose. 

“Consumers have become evermore aware of how their data is being used and consent regulations around the world have been rapidly evolving, moving to an expectation that customers should be always in control of their data,” he said.

“Ensuring data collaboration is being performed in line with the latest, active consents is something that is not possible for a number of organisations today, so this is something we are passionate about solving through the platform.” 

Tyrrell said 1835i’s Business Creation Lab help them build the idea to launch this proposition.

“Accessing their tools and expertise has helped us to rapidly develop the platform and our business,” he said

1835i managing director Ron Spector said the goal of Creation Lab is to design, build and launch new digital ventures.

“The DataCo platform addresses some key problems for enterprises seeking to collaborate safely and securely and utilise data in a way which benefits consumers,” he said.