Australia's Data Republic gets $7.6m Series A round

The investments in the Series A round came from NAB Ventures, Westpac's Reinventure Fund and Qantas' passenger rewards business Qantas Loyalty. According to a statement, the deal is the first of its kind in the 95-year history of the Australian airline.

The capital will be used to support Data Republic's expansion efforts into the US later this year while driving product and service advancements that will prioritize customer privacy. Investor equity stakes were not disclosed.

"Given the increasing prevalence of data sharing between organizations, the creation of ‘banking infrastructure for data' to enable it to flow as freely, with the same trust, security and privacy as money is critical to moving towards a data driven economy," said Danny Gilligan, co-founder of Reinventure. "Both Data Republic and the security which the data bank infrastructure offers are important innovations in this regard."

Established in 2014, Data Republic offers a security-focused data exchange platform that leverages the rise in data traffic between companies, governments and not-for-profits. The technology is used to analyze customer behavior and provide organizations with strategic insights. The company has previously partnered with Westpac to develop a bankgrade security infrastructure project that is said to be the world's first data banking service.

NAB set up its fintech venture vehicle last year with the launch of a A$50 million fund aimed at start-ups in the fields of mobile platforms, payments, and data and analytics. This followed the implementation of a similar A$50 million program under Reinventure, which has already backed companies including peer-to-peer online lending platform SocietyOne, big data player Zetaris, and payments solution provider PromisePay.

Asia Pacific venture investment in cybersecurity has slowly begun to catch up to the sector's booming North American market.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Technology
• Expansion
• Financials
• Venture
• Australia
• NAB
• TMT