Greetings from Portsmouth, New Hampshire!
It’s an odd time to be in New England. For the first time since 2010, the New England Patriots have not won a playoff game. I’m guessing that approximately zero percent of you outside of the region are upset about this development. In fact, I don’t think the schadenfreude around the U.S. can be quantified by any known numerical value. I imagine it can probably power a mid-sized city. Anyway, I think it would be awesome if Pat Mahomes wins a Super Bowl, so go, Chiefs, I suppose.
Back in the world of privacy, a pair of tech vendors recently announced they closed new rounds of funding. BigID and AvePoint received $50 million and $200 million, respectively. The early days of 2020 continue a trend that accelerated last summer and has not really slowed down since.
And according to those in the market, it doesn’t look like it will anytime soon. In my conversations with BigID CEO and Co-Founder Dimitri Sirota and AvePoint Chief Risk, Privacy and Information Security Officer Dana Simberkoff this week, both said investors expect privacy to follow the same path the security industry did decades earlier.
It may take some time before the privacy tech market grows into what security is today, but the seeds have already started to grow. Just look at the IAPP "Privacy Tech Vendor Report." When the IAPP published the first iteration of the report in 2017, there were less than 50 vendors listed. The latest version of the report released last fall had 259 vendors listed, and that number is only going in one direction.
Privacy professionals want to stay on top of the compliance requirements of the California Consumer Privacy Act or any federal privacy law that may possibly appear in the future, not to mention the EU General Data Protection Regulation and plethora of privacy laws popping up around the world. Investors are placing their bets on organizations dipping into the privacy tech market to adhere to all these rules and avoid any financial and reputational damage they may incur for noncompliance.
2020 is less than two weeks old, but I’m willing to bet we will see more financial fireworks in the months ahead.