Skyflow adds generative AI support to its data privacy tools

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Skyflow, a data privacy startup, announced Friday that it has expanded the number of markets in which it offers data residency support for companies that need to keep certain information within defined borders. In today’s market, you probably won’t be able to keep customer data from the EU in, say, South America and vice versa, so companies need to be careful to keep some information in-house in the market where it’s coming from. got.

sky flow life began as a tool to help companies store personally identifiable information, or PII, securely. Its API helps companies “handle all the difficult privacy, encryption, and data issues related to storing PII and other forms of potentially radioactive data for their customers,” we wrote last time we covered the company.

The start-up, which recently closed on a $45 million Series B in late 2021, you can now support data residency requirements in Japan, India, Indonesia, and Bahrain. The job, CEO of Skyflow anshu sharma explained to TechCrunch+, it will allow software companies to offer their services in more markets, faster, while meeting local regulatory requirements about where data resides and the secure storage of user personal information.

Sharma argued that his company’s recently expanded regional data storage capabilities will provide ways to help other companies avoid the complexity of putting their own data storage and security frameworks in place simply to launch into new markets.

Skyflow’s work to support more regions didn’t come cheap. Sharma said the work had a “high fixed cost”, which Skyflow was able to afford because it “raised a lot of money”, allowing it to “take on the infrastructure and operating costs” for its clients. (As an aside, this is what venture capital is for: building ahead of revenue in the hope of garnering outsized market share.)

Since all technology companies, whether new or major, want to garner every bit of growth possible in today’s sluggish market, you can see why Skyflow expects a return on its investment. If software companies continue to push to reach new markets to sell their services, they will have to handle a series of regulations and data rules on their own. Or they can work with Skyflow or one of their competitors: EverVault, protectionamong others, to help meet local requirements.

So far, Skyflow has found remarkable international adoption. Sharma told TechCrunch+ that Skyflow does more than 40% of its current business with non-US customers. The CEO was quick to point out, consulting the S-1 files during our call, that some well-known software companies had low double-digit revenue from international markets when they were made public. It will be curious to see if further regional support pushes that number above 50% over time; we’ll get back to the startup in a few quarters.

Where does generative AI come into this?

Skyflow initially focused on offering its service to the fintech and healthcare verticals. However, recently built a version of its data warehousing service to support generative AI services, so when we had Sharma on the phone to talk about data residency, we also asked a few questions about market demand for LLM-related software services.

Through the startup, how you envision sitting between corporate information and LLMs. Image Credits: sky flow

First, we wanted to know if the startup created the tool due to known demand or before anticipated need. According to Sharma, his startup started getting customer calls a few months ago about generative AI and how those companies need to keep not only PII, but also sensitive internal data, away from LLMs. He said the demand comes from both bottom-up use of generative AI tools and curiosity at the executive level. Put another way, both corporate drones and corporate demigods want to use generative AI, but they don’t want to get in trouble. with the kind of data leaks we’ve already seen in the marketplace.