Pune Inc: Nine-month-old Blockfenders raises $1.5 mn to create secure data exchange network for companies

“We have seen that a lot of enterprises, such as healthcare companies and fintech firms, across the globe have a lot of data with them. They want to share the data internally or with a third party to meet their business and operational goals, but the data is completely locked. Although this is a top priority of their IT, data, and security leaders, data sharing while maintaining privacy and security, is not easy and secure. If performed incorrectly, it can lead to brand and reputational damage with heavy penalties,” says Ingale, the CTO.

Cyber attacks and compliances, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that companies have to adhere to are among the main reasons for massive amounts of data staying locked at present. Blockfenders has developed a unique technology using blockchain to unlock data securely. “We are giving companies an option to securely share their data across the globe,” adds Ingale. According to him, the Total Addressable Market (TAM) is $ 5 billion.

The company is confident it is on the right track because studies, such as by the US-based research firm Gartner, have shown that companies that encourage data sharing will surpass their competitors in terms of business performance. Gartner also predicts that only a small fraction (less than 5 per cent) of data-sharing initiatives will be successful in identifying and accessing trustworthy data sources.

“In a recent survey of Chief Data Officers, Forrester Research found that more than 70 per cent of global data and analytics decision-makers are increasing their capacity to utilise external data,” says Ingale.

The new technology promises to make data sharing as simple as sharing photos on the phone. “We aim to democratise data sharing by enabling business, research, and non-technical professionals to share data from their environment without writing any code or worrying about privacy, security, and implementation. Organisations can easily establish a single source of truth of data and share it in a fine-grained manner while meeting stringent regulations and compliances,” he adds.