German anonymization company Brighter AI Technologies is a Berlin-based deeptech startup founded in 2017 and voted Hottest European Startup by NVIDIA in 2018.
Brighter AI works to overcome limitations in human and computer vision with artificial intelligence. For example, the startup has developed a process that anonymizes personally identifiable information such as faces, but preserves camera data for analytics and machine learning approaches. With its innovative anonymization approach using deep neural networks, they have solved the ‘data privacy vs analytics dilemma’ for more than 1.1 bln public cameras. It now secured several millions in funding from eCAPITAL and Giesecke+Devrient Ventures, Pressebox portal reports.
With its Deep Natural Anonymization technology, Brighter AI enables customers in the automotive, retail, public transport and public security sectors to comply with regulations, such as the GDPR in Europe or the CCPA in California, protect people’s privacy and at the same time enable valuable analytics functions based on the anonymized data.
Brighter AI will use the investment to boost its growth by accelerating the product development through expanding the technical team with senior hires and further building the sales & marketing and partner organization.
“This capital raise by a renowned German venture capital investor, with a specialized cybersecurity fund, together with G+D Ventures, the Corporate VC arm of the international security specialist Giesecke+Devrient is proof of the market potential of our solution in the fast-growing data security market. “With eCAPITAL and G+D Ventures, we do not only raise capital, but partner up with highly experienced entrepreneurs that bring an international network and gain support of G+D”, stated Cofounder & CEO Marian Gläser.
Willi Mannheims, Managing Partner at eCAPITAL comments: “We are excited to join forces with Brighter AI, a startup with groundbreaking technology and an excellent team. Brighter AI has solved a fundamental problem of using and storing still and video data while adhering to data security requirements. We are thrilled to support Brighter AI accelerating their venture.”
Dirk Seewald, venture partner at eCAPITAL and experienced entrepreneur, will take on an advisory board position at Brighter AI.
“With its anonymization technology, Brighter AI opens up completely new markets that we can address together with various G+D Group business sectors,” adds Michael Hochholzer, Managing Director of G+D Ventures. “The first projects are currently being shaped.”
In 2022, 7 exabytes of video data will be transmitted by vehicles and public cameras per hour, providing infinite data points – crucial for an autonomous infrastructure, insight-driven services and new businesses. Through its unique „Deep Natural Anonymization” (DNA) technology Brighter AI empowers companies to use publicly-recorded camera data for analytics & AI while being compliant with data privacy regulations worldwide.