Recent funding news indicates increased need for data compliance management

The past year has brought on an enormous shift for digital marketers and organizations. In the wake of GDPR — and with CCPA going into effect in less than six months — data privacy compliance has become a focal point for organizations across the globe.

Data privacy compliance firm OneTrust announced that it has closed an impressive $200 million Series A investment from Insight Partners in its latest round of funding — bringing the valuation of the platform to $1.3 billion. The multi-million dollar investment demonstrates the mounting priority businesses are placing on operationalizing privacy compliance.

“It’s been an exciting three years at OneTrust, with our customers partnering with us to define and build the most widely used technology platform in a completely new market,” said Karbir Barday, CEO and fellow of information privacy at OneTrust. “This investment will help us to bring a new level of scale and support for our customers, coming at a timely juncture with just six months before California’s CCPA is set to be enforced.”

Why we should care

Just this week, the European Union slapped massive fines on British Airways and Marriot for data breaches that affected hundreds of millions of their customers. The sheer sizes of the fines — $230 million and $123 million, respectively — should be enough to put compliance at the forefront of your digital strategy (if it isn’t already). Third-party vendors like OneTrust are recognizing the need to provide tools and solutions for compliance management.

Data privacy is becoming a visible part of our strategies, particularly in digital marketing. As we learn to manage the different regional laws and global regulations, many organizations will turn to third-party vendors to help drive the compliance component of our strategies.

We can expect to see more data compliance management platforms coming into the marketplace as enterprises and their service providers implement new programs and new laws evolve.

More on the news

1. OneTrust already serves over 3,000 clients in more than 100 countries.

2. Products within the OneTrust platform include processes to automate CCPA and GDPR requirements, including “right to be forgotten,” “access,” and “do not sell”.

3. Earlier in the week, San Francisco-based TrustArc raised $70 million in its latest funding to help organizations build privacy and compliance programs.