Osano, an Austin, Texas-based company building a platform for data privacy transparency, emerged from stealth with $3m in seed funding.
The round was led by LiveOak Ventures with participation from Next Coast Ventures, Capital Factory, Social Starts, Barracuda Networks and 345Partners Co-Founder Michael Perone, data.world and Bazaarvoice Founder Brett Hurt, and Indeed Founder Rony Kahan.
The company intends to use the funds to launch and expand adoption of its Privacy Monitor tools and new privacy reputation scoring system.
Founded in 2018 by Arlo Gilbert, CEO and co-founder, Osano has just launched Privacy Monitor, a free browser plugin and mobile app that helps users understand how websites, software vendors and other service providers treat their data privacy. The system analyzes thousands of online privacy policies and communicates that analysis through Privacy Monitor, allowing users to make informed decisions about how they interact and share data with those websites and service providers.
Privacy Monitor is available as a lightweight plugin for Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers and as a mobile app for Android and, soon, iOS. As users navigate around the web, Privacy Monitor alerts them of a proprietary privacy reputation score for the website they are visiting as well as which direction the score is trending. In the mobile app, users can also search for specific websites or online services. The privacy reputation score is calculated and updated based on how companies gather and utilize users’ data, where and with whom they share it, how it is stored and whether they comply with regulations like GDPR, among other factors.
The company operates as a B Corporation, a business designation that means the company considers the impact of its decisions on employees, customers, vendors, the community and the environment, and balances purpose and profit.
FinSMEs
09/03/2019