“As for protecting one’s private data, the industry tools don’t even exist yet”
The velocity of growth in the mobile ecosystem has been enormous over the past few years. Driven by Generation Touch we have a whole new ecosystem with various tools and services that power it. Data of all types continue to flow in and out of the system yet one of the more under-appreciated segments of the market remains: personal data privacy and compliance. Every CIO and CMO we talk to speaks to the personalization and privacy tradeoff they experience on a daily basis. How do I solve for data ownership, while ceding some control to 3rd parties?
We first met Michael Katz through Ari Jacoby, the CEO of Solve Media and a founder we had backed at AOL Ventures. Michael came from the ad space, having founded interclick which sold to Yahoo for $270m in 2011. He was a true company builder and knew the acute problem of customer data privacy from his tenure at interclick and Yahoo. He showed us a very compelling platform for CMOs and CIOs to handle data collection, privacy management and compliance to put their apps in control. We were immediately hooked and loved the focus and fit with our model. It didn’t hurt also that he had the knowledge of customer growth, having built interclick to $150m in annual revenue before selling.
Michael’s acute need was having a firm that really helped with early customer traction and sales leads. Given this is what Bowery is all about, we decided to lead the round and are excited to announce the funding for mParticle alongside our friends at Google Ventures and Greylock Partners as well as a host of amazing angels. We look forward to rolling up our sleeves and working with Michael to make mParticle a great success.
