For the last two years, we have been building a decentralised technology which gives every company the ability to securely co-operate and access the same level of consumer understanding as the tech giants.

Sharing and moving data into a centralised pool has become an outdated solution. As shown by last week’s enormous Equifax breach, combining large amounts of data is far too attractive for hackers and risky for companies, even with the most robust cyber security.

With the arrival of more stringent data protection laws, such as the GDPR increasing fines for data breaches up to 4% of global annual turnover, centralising data is no longer enough to protect customer privacy.

But this shouldn’t slow down innovation.

I founded InfoSum as I wanted to create a new and better way for all companies, regardless of size, to collaborate over consumer insight and become smarter together — without the privacy or security risks that come with centralising data or sharing it with third parties.

I wanted to make it possible for every company to understand more about their customers and quickly react to market changes. To take the level of intelligence held in monolithic centralised databases and make it universally accessible — all whilst maintaining individual data privacy and GDPR compliance.

Our technology

At InfoSum, we have developed a new and unique form of decentralised technology which can analyse data without moving it.

We have solved the problem of companies storing data in different formats and invented a way that they can all be treated as one. For example, different companies may store age in various ways — such as date of birth, exact age or as an age range — but our AI powered technology can understand and standardise this information.

So even though no two data sets are the same, our technology makes them compatible.

Our vision is to use this capability to help companies understand a broader perspective of their customers’ lives and analyse previously incompatible data sets. So every company can discover new sources and dimensions of data whilst meeting all international data protection regulations, and become more in tune and relevant to their customers than currently possible.

For example, a retailer knows how customers shop with them but knows little else about their lifestyle, behaviour and interests. Using our technology, the retailer can access deeper insights based on the characteristics of their top customers. This will enable insight driven innovations, like recognising an interest for and then introducing an activewear line, which increase sales and satisfy consumer demand.