[vc_row][vc_column][button size=”medium_rd_bt” url=”https://i2e.org/?na=view&id=29″]Back to Newsletter[/button][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
March 17, 2021
Contact: Sarah Seagraves,
Senior VP for Marketing
[email protected]
OKLAHOMA CITY — i2E Management Co., Inc., (iMCI) recently led a $750,000 seed-round investment in Oklahoma City-based PrivacyBrain.
PrivacyBrain is a cybersecurity platform that removes sensitive personal identifying information from data broker sites on the Internet.
The investment included $375,000 from the iMCI-managed Oklahoma Seed Capital Fund, along with co-investment from Cortado Ventures, the i2E-managed SeedStep Angels, and remaining investment from other Angel investors.
PrivacyBrain crawls the Internet searching for personal information of its clients on scores of phone number lookup and data broker websites.
When the information is located, the PrivacyBrain technology then makes an automatic removal request on behalf of its clients or their employees.
“If you Google someone, you’ll see lots of websites that advertise having this information, and it’s easy to access,” PrivacyBrain founder Elliott Adams said. “Our technology works to help our clients understand where the information is, helps them remove the information, and monitors whether or not the information returns. If it does come back, we start the removal process over again.”
Adams is a former Chief Technology Officer of a digital music startup called CD Baby that was acquired for $22 million, and currently teaches at both the University of California-Berkeley and Stanford University. He has served as an entrepreneur-in-residence for TechStars.
“This funding round is especially important to us as we grow because although we’ve proven the demand for the product and built our first iteration of the product, we want to improve the product, as well,” Adams said. “We want to dedicate more resources to understanding how we can improve our user experience for our clients and build products that not only protect our clients’ information but are also products our clients love using.”
PrivacyBrain participated in i2E’s e3 – equip, evaluate and empower – program for new ventures in June 2019 where the company confirmed product-market fit and began to establish key partnerships in the cybersecurity space.
Adams began working with an i2E Venture Advisor in August 2019 to further develop a product roadmap and path to market.
In October 2019 PrivacyBrain received a $100,000 OCAST Technology Business Finance Program investment for version 1 product development and further customer validation.
Stacey Brandhorst, PrivacyBrain’s Venture Advisor at i2E, said that she is excited to watch the team execute their vision thanks to this capital raise.
“Elliott and the team are extremely driven and have worked to ensure a comprehensive go-to-market strategy,” Brandhorst said. “I love PrivacyBrain’s staged approach to company building, they have mitigated risks at every step of their journey and now is the time for all the pieces to come together.”
The Oklahoma Seed Capital Fund is managed by i2E on behalf of the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST).
ABOUT PRIVACYBRAIN
Founded in 2018 by Elliott Adams, PrivacyBrain operates as a distributed team with offices in both Oklahoma City and San Francisco. PrivacyBrain automates removal requests of personal identifying information on behalf of employees for over 100 phone number lookup sites and marketing-focused data brokers. It denies potential attackers a large pool of information which they can no longer weaponize and use to launch an attack. PrivacyBrain’s technology enables clients to gain command over employee personal identifying information that is otherwise collected and used by unauthorized third parties without an individual’s knowledge or consent. Website: PrivacyBrain.com
ABOUT i2E MANAGEMENT COMPANY INC.
i2E Management Company, Inc. (iMCI), is a private, for profit investment and fund management company operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of i2E, Inc. iMCI currently manages $90 million across five venture funds. iMCI makes investment decisions and provides investment management as General Partner and/or Managing Member of a growing number of privately managed venture capital funds. Since 2007, iMCI and i2E, Inc. have invested more than $61 million of equity funding into 58 companies.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
