Duality Technologies, a US-based privacy technology provider, has raised $16m in its series A round from a consortium led by Intel Capital with the participation of Hearst Ventures and Team8, a venture firm backed by Cisco, Microsoft, AT&T, Walmart, Airbus, Softbank, Accenture, Qualcomm, Moody’s, Munich-Re, Dimension Data, Nokia and Scotiabank.
In June 2018, Intel and Duality set up an effort to explore the security challenges of artificial intelligence (AI) workloads using homomorphic encryption – the ability to perform mathematical operations on data that have been encrypted – on Intel platforms with the goal of minimizing data exposure.
Roi Bar-Kat, investment director, led the investment for Intel Capital and Anthony Lin, vice-president and senior managing director of Intel Capital, said: “Privacy-preservation in AI and ML [machine learning] represents a huge market need, and we’re investing in Duality because of its unique founding team and world-leading expertise in both advanced cryptography and data science.”
Kenneth Bronfin, senior managing director of Hearst Ventures, added: “Sensitive data is constantly being generated by both individuals and businesses; there needs to be technology available that protects such data while allowing us to extract insights.”
In November 2018, Duality raised $4m in a round led by Team8, a venture capital firm and startup foundry established in 2014 by former leaders of Unit 8200, a top Israeli military intelligence unit.
