Data Classification Firm DocAuthority Raises $10 Million

Israeli startup firm DocAuthority has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Raine Ventures, with the participation of Greycroft, ffVC, Differential VC in the US, and 2B Angels and Plus Ventures in Israel. The finance will be used to accelerate growth and market reach.

DocAuthority brings artificial intelligence to the classification problem for unstructured data. Security and compliance require that company secrets, intellectual property and personal information be adequately secured; but business efficiency requires ready access to and use of non-confidential data. This requires accurate document classification, specifying what level of security control should be applied to different documents.

This data classification is traditionally performed manually. If applied historically it can take many months, and is subject to both false positives and false negatives in the application of classification labels. If done in real time, there is a frequent tendency for individuals to over-classify — to assume a particular document is more sensitive than it actually is.

The result is often both an unnecessary burden on staff efficiency (through over-classification), and a failure to adequately protect instances of personal data (through under-classification).  The need to locate and protect all instances of PII is increasingly important with the rapid growth of severe personal privacy legislation, such as GDPR.

DocAuthority’s AI-based platform will scan documents and apply classification without human error, and at machine rather than human speed. “DocAuthority’s revolutionary BusinessID technology,” claims cofounder and CTO Ariel Peled, “is a new branch in data science, offering a novel take on AI that solves a major problem in data management and protection. With full automation and an accuracy level of 1:10,000, both business and security can agree and safely rely on policies for data classification, access management, DLP, encryption and as importantly, retention.”

The funding “is an important milestone for DocAuthority,” commented CEO Steve Abbott. “DocAuthority enables organizations to manage data based on both risk profile and business value, offering a common language across an organization. Assigning data management policies, based on business category, easily aligns security controls with business usage of data.”

DocAuthority was founded in 2013 by Ariel Peled (CTO) and Itay Reved (VP R&D). It is based in Ra’anana, HaMerkaz, in central Israel.

Related: Handling Classified Information: Lessons Learned 

Related: How U.S Intelligence Agencies Manage and Classify Information