Datavillage raises €1 million to allow consumers to create and control their digital twin

Datavillage announces the closing of its funding round of €1 million. Belgian-based start-up, who joined and raised 100K€ from Digital Attraxion at the end of 2019, Datavillage aims to put the consumer back in control of their personal data, and this in complete transparency and by ensuring respect for their privacy. “We do this by creating a digital twin of each consumer and storing it in a personal data store which is managed by the consumer himself. Consumers can give companies access to their digital twin in order to offer personalized services like content preferences but the consumer always stays in control of his or her own data. The user-centric data approach also benefits businesses that rely on data. Instead of controlling and processing it themselves, organisations can extract value without the burden and risk of managing personal data”, Frederic Lebeau, co-founder of Datavillage.

Digital twin in personal data store

Datavillage announces the closing of its funding round of €1 million, a mix of equity and grants, along with regional aid for innovation and research. "When talking about personal data, privacy, transparency and user control have rightfully become a hot topic in both regulation and public opinion”, says Quentin Felice, co-founder of Datavillage.

“With Datavillage we want to change the way individuals and organizations produce and consume data. Our goal is to put the consumer back in control of their personal data, and this in complete transparency and by ensuring respect for their privacy”, states Quentin Felice.

“We do this by creating a digital twin of each consumer. This twin is stored in a personal data store (PDS) that is managed by the consumer himself. Consumers can give companies access to their digital twins in order to offer personalized services - from content preferences to customized job offers, work-out schemes and so on – but the consumer always holds the key to the vault and stays in control of his or her own data”, Frederic Lebeau.

Extracting the value of data with the burden of managing it

The use and sharing of personal data through the end-users bring new perspectives for the consumers but also for organizations that can leverage their collaborations as a competitive advantage in the market.

Organizations are spending a lot of time collecting and managing personal data in a compliant way. Major players have made this their core business as most of their revenue rely on collecting and processing personal data.

The user-centric data approach drastically reduces the cost of managing personal data with regards to GDPR and privacy.

“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. “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.”

Furthermore, this approach allows smaller organizations to come together in so called user-centric data ecosystems. They combine their services to consumers in order to remain competitive compared to internet giants.

In search of top-notch believers to join their quest

Over the past two years, Datavillage has acquired a solid expertise in the personal data landscape to become one of the key Belgian players in the personal data’s value extraction by companies, always guaranteeing users’ privacy and control.

"We're noticing that a lot of different sectors are intrigued our vision: from media to mobility, finance and healthcare sectors”, says Quentin Felice. “A few examples are match making between personal data & streaming platforms catalogue or fraud detection between banking transactions data and personal location data”.

The secured funds will enable Datavillage to grow, and grow the 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”, Quentin Felice.

Found their job offers HERE 🔥

Follow them on Facebook & Linkedin