Data Privacy Startup MinerEye Raises $3.6 Million

MinerEye Ltd., an Israel-based data protection startup, has raised $3.6 million in a funding round led by Canada-based AWZ HLS Investment Fund I with participation from unnamed private investors, the startup announced Monday.

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Founded in 2015, MinerEye previously raised pre-seed funding from Marius Nacht, one of the founders of Nasdaq-traded information security company Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.

The startup develops software for data security and management using artificial intelligence to identify and track sensitive information stored in company databases. The software is intended to help customers comply with regulations and laws that require certain data be kept private, like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation that is set to take effect in May.

"Organizations are inundated with ‘dark data’—data that is typically unstructured, unidentified and unclassified,” MinerEye’s CEO and founder, Yaniv Avidan, said in a statement. “This dark data is continuously created, modified and stored during regular business activity, but later fails to be governed or reused according to privacy and data protection laws and regulations.”

Founded by Israeli-born businessman Yaron Ashkenazi in 2016, AWZ invests in homeland security technology from Israel. The MinerEye deal represents the Canadian venture fund’s seventh investment in Israel over the past 18 months.

Previous deals by the investment fund include a $4.5 million investment in NanoLock Security Inc., a $5.25 million investment in Octopus Systems Ltd. and a $3.5 million investment in Siga Data Security Ltd.