Investment Notes: Betterdata

The global data privacy and security market size is expected to reach $68.4 billion by 2025, according to a report by MarketsandMarkets. As this industry booms, the risk of data leaks and privacy breaches skyrockets alongside it. But what would happen if the data shared around was, in fact, not containing any private information? What if it served the same utility as the original dataset without being traceable back to real individuals?

That’s where Betterdata comes in.

As one of the first startups selected for the Franklin Templeton Singapore FinTech Incubator, Betterdata has already separated itself from the crowd. Their Generative AI and Privacy Engineering based synthetic data platform helps highly-regulated enterprises and government institutions share data easily and securely.

The Investible Early Stage Fund 2 led their oversubscribed $1.65 million seed round alongside Franklin Templeton, Xcel Next, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Bon Auxilium, Tenity, Plug and Play, and Entrepreneur First. With great traction already in the market, we’re confident in the success of Betterdata and the potential for growth in the synthetic data market.

Powerful tailwinds pushing for data privacy

The data privacy and security market is growing rapidly around the world, driven by increasing concerns over data breaches and the misuse of personal information. Accelerating this market is the introduction of new regulations around the world such as the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) in Singapore, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the United States, and the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) in China.

Data breaches and cyber-attacks continue to pose a significant threat to individuals and businesses worldwide. The growing demand for data privacy and security solutions pushes businesses between a rock and a hard place, asking them to use data for various purposes while simultaneously safeguarding personal information.  

Synthetic data, a dataset generated by AI that structurally and statistically replicates existing data without carrying private information, is a viable solution to this problem. The culmination of increasing artificial intelligence adoption and a move to cloud-based solutions is driving the global synthetic data market worth to an expected $2.5 billion by 2025. With cloud-based solutions, businesses can access synthetic data without the need to invest in expensive hardware and infrastructure. This has made it easier for businesses of all sizes to leverage synthetic data for various purposes.

A scalable way to meet global compliance and privacy laws

Betterdata's innovative synthetic data platform provides a comprehensive solution that enables businesses to utilize data for various use cases while maintaining confidentiality and privacy. By generating synthetic data that mimics real-world data, Betterdata's platform offers a unique approach to data sharing that allows businesses to meet global compliance and privacy laws at scale.  

The use of synthetic data is becoming increasingly popular in the industry, and it is expected to grow in the coming years. According to a report by MarketsandMarkets, the synthetic data market is expected to grow from $178 million in 2020 to $2.5 billion by 2025, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 69.9% during the forecast period. This growth is driven by factors such as the increasing demand for data privacy and security, the need for large volumes of data for AI and ML applications, and the growing adoption of cloud-based solutions.

Leveraging Generative AI for privacy

Betterdata’s Generative AI (GenAI) models create synthetic data at scale in a non-biased, highly accurate, and privacy-preserving way. This is essential in many business verticals as the new wave of systems powered by GenAI become mainstream.

The platform sets itself apart from traditional data sharing methods that rely on data anonymization, which essentially destroys information to ensure privacy. Instead, the company utilizes advanced techniques such as GenAI and Privacy Engineering to generate high-quality synthetic data without compromising on privacy or information integrity. This innovative approach not only guarantees optimal data quality, but also provides enhanced risk management and fairness guarantees that are crucial for business use cases.  

In essence, Betterdata's synthetic data platform offers a cutting-edge solution that addresses the limitations of traditional data-sharing methods, making it a game-changer for the AI industry.

An experienced team with a proven track record

Betterdata's experienced founder team includes CEO Dr. Uzair Javaid and CTO Kevin Yee who bring a combined experience of 25+ years in data security and privacy, software development, and artificial intelligence to the company. The team has a proven track record of developing innovative solutions for the data industry, and we believe they are well-positioned to lead the development and commercialization of Betterdata's synthetic data platform.

Dr. Uzair Javaid is a highly accomplished computer scientist, holding a Ph.D. from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and boasting over 6 years of experience in privacy engineering with 500+ citations across 15+ international peer-reviewed publications. He's a seasoned veteran in the field, having worked with several AI and cybersecurity research labs in Singapore, Finland and United States, where he's contributed to some impressive projects, such as ethically hacking the Ethereum blockchain and reverse engineering its encryption algorithm to get access to 670 user wallets.

Kevin Yee, on the other hand, is a brilliant young computer scientist, who received his degree in Computer Science and AI from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). He shares Dr. Javaid's passion for AI research and has already accomplished so much in his career. Kevin has spent time in research labs in Singapore and Israel where he worked on various projects, including identification, shelf recognition in supermarket robots, and deep generative models for synthetic data generation. One of his impressive projects was to generate fake human fingerprints to unlock smartphones.

Together, they're an incredible team and are making significant strides in the AI industry, particularly in data and privacy engineering, and synthetic data generation.

Taking synthetic data into the future

Betterdata has already secured partnerships with leading academic institutes in Singapore and the United States, and has attracted customers that include Fortune 200 and Public Agencies. As businesses face increasing pressure to comply with data protection regulations locally, regionally and globally, synthetic data solutions like Betterdata's will become increasingly important.

We believe that Betterdata has immense potential to solve a critical challenge in the AI industry, leading an innovation that will inform the burgeoning privacy protection industry. Judging from the oversubscribed round and the interest of reputable global firms, we aren’t alone in this belief.

With the current funding, Betterdata plans to publicly launch its product and expand across the Asia-Pacific region over the next one to two years. We’re looking forward to joining them for this journey and believe this is an exciting opportunity for investors to support a company that is at the forefront of innovation in the AI industry.