Digi.me Merges With Personal To Create Global Personal Data Control Powerhouse
Combination Will Accelerate Growth of the Business of Empowering People with Their Data
LONDON and WASHINGTON, Aug. 17, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Digi.me and Personal are combining forces through a merger, bringing together the leading European and US companies in the emerging personal data ecosystem to provide a single integrated solution for consumers and businesses.
Both companies have pioneered innovative technologies to empower individuals to gain control over the growing amount of data and analytics about themselves that fuels the digital world. They directly address the challenge of enhancing privacy while increasing the ability of people to benefit from sharing and analyzing data, including by apps on a mobile phone without the data ever having to leave the phone.
The combined business will be called digi.me, with its global HQ near London in the UK and the US operation based in Washington, DC. Personal's enterprise solutions, known as TeamData, will be spun off as a separate information security and productivity company for businesses. The combined global workforce of over 60 people will continue to work for digi.me.
"We are excited to bring together the best of digi.me and Personal to accelerate the growth of our combined products and network of partners," said Julian Ranger, Founder and Chairman of digi.me. "We have each built complementary infrastructure and products necessary for individuals to easily aggregate and share data whilst maintaining its security and privacy. It's a win-win for individuals and for companies who embrace this model of transparency and trust."
"Everything is powered by data today, but without clear benefit for the individual," said Shane Green, Co-founder and CEO of Personal, who will serve as CEO of digi.me (US). "In a world of rapidly expanding artificial intelligence, analytics and personalized experiences, it is critical that we as individuals have the tools and rules to ensure our interests are also served by our data."
Digi.me and Personal have raised over $45 million between them, attracting leading investors such as the Omidyar Network, SwissRe, Planetary Holdings, TCS Capital Management, Allen & Company, Revolution Ventures, Ted Leonsis and Esther Dyson.
Digi.me allows individuals to easily aggregate a broad and deep range of their social media data from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Flickr and other popular sources along with financial data from hundreds of sources in a secure library. Companies and developers can then use digi.me's APIs to request access to integrated data sets to provide better data-driven experiences, services, and rewards, and to provide other benefits like rich personal analytics. Health, wearable and music data will also be available soon after the merger. Current partners of digi.me include Swiss Re, Western Digital, Lenovo, Amgen, Dattaca Labs and FNAC.
Personal is focused on secure, collaborative creation and management of reusable data constantly needed by people at home and work to complete thousands of information-related tasks. It supports a multitude of data types from passwords, credit cards and IDs to detailed data for office and home use such as insurance, health and personal data of employees and family members. A free version of Personal's TeamData app will be available for individual use following the merger and will be integrated into digi.me later this year.
The combined version of digi.me and Personal will allow seamless management of thousands of different types of both feed and manually-created data, supported by the industry's leading structured data ontology and data normalization technology. It will also allow secure sharing and far richer data-driven experiences between individuals and third party apps, and allow companies to reduce business and regulatory risks by requesting access directly from users.
"People assume there is a fundamental trade-off between sharing data and privacy, with Americans historically favoring sharing and Europeans favoring privacy," said Rory Donnelly, CEO of digi.me. "That no longer has to be the case when the individual controls much of the critical data about them and their lives. We are delivering the exact permission-based technology solution regulators and CEOs have been seeking."
"There simply isn't any way we can create this exciting, data-driven future without individual agency over data," said CV Madhukar, Investment Partner at Omidyar Network. "Companies can use data to improve our lives, but their interests must be balanced with that of the individual: users must always have choice over who they reward with their trust and data."
Find more information about digi.me, including the app, at https://www.digi.me, TeamData is at https://teamdata.com/.
About Digi.me
Digi.me is a personal data exchange platform that allows consumers to gather together information currently scattered around the web and share it on their terms under the company's bespoke Consent Access process. Digi.me is working with world-leading businesses in the health, finance, FMCG and telco sectors on projects unlocking the benefits of targeted and consented data sharing for both consumers and organizations.
About Personal, Inc.
Personal is a leader in empowering individuals and teams with reusable, machine-readable data. Its TeamData solution, originally launched as a data vault for consumers, provides advanced information security and collaborative information management for thousands of use cases in the workplace. Personal was recognized as the first consumer company to implement privacy by design architecture, and its "reverse" license agreement enables individuals and teams to maintain ownership and control of data they share.
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