German privacy tech startup Usercentrics raises millions in Series A funding for its 'consent management platform'

Munich, Germany-based SaaS startup Usercentrics aims to create an entirely new infrastructure for user consent across data architectures. To do that, and to scale globally, the company today announced the closing of a new Series A investment - a "multi-million fundraising round" - from ALSTIN Capital with participation from existing investors Cavalry Ventures and Reimann Investors.

Alexander Gösswein, who is in charge of several regions for NASDAQ-listed Criteo, also chipped in.

Founded in late 2017, Usercentrics' software essentially enables its customers (mostly enterprises, publishers and agencies) to obtain, manage and legally document the consent of their users for data processing purposes.

As we've seen with the new GDPR regulation, data protection and privacy-compliant collection of user consent plays an increasingly important role in this world, and there are loads of other data protection and privacy regulations on their way around the planet.

This makes for a credible and timely pitch from the Munich privacy technology startup, and the company claims hundreds of customers, including Fortune 500 companies such as Telefonica, T-Mobile and Commerzbank, have already signed up.

"The proper management of the user's consent has become a very relevant constraint for data-driven business models and thus a competitive advantage," comments Mischa Rürup, founder and CEO of Usercentrics.

"If personal data is processed in the future, the company must prove the data’s origin, exact purpose, retention period and many more attributes. If the organization fails to do so, data from several years may have to be deleted in retrospect if the respective consents have not been documented correctly. This leads to a loss of customers and revenue. The company thus exposes itself to a significant risk, which exceeds the 4% fine foreseen in the GDPR."

"Without consent, personal data is worth nothing; and without data, consent is worthless," Rürup adds. "Data and their consents only become a success factor after being merged. Usercentrics therefore generates consent IDs and attaches them directly to the data so that the consents are linked to the data."

Source: Gründerszene