🦄 Unicorner Startup of the Week: Cape Privacy 
 
 ✍️ Notes From The Editors  
We're excited to present this week's article, guest-written by Alex Ker! Alex is the founder of the newsletter Marct AI, which focuses specifically on select AI-related startup opportunities. His articles discuss topics like how to break into artificial intelligence, up-and-coming research, and exciting developments in machine learning. Be sure to check it out!
 
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 - Arek and Ethan 🦄
 
 
Encrypted learning in the cloud
 
 
Cape Privacy is an enterprise SaaS platform for encrypted learning, a machine learning technique that trains an algorithm on data without decrypting it. Its service combines advanced machine learning and cryptography to protect data privacy while companies collaborate with external stakeholders to improve models and increase business value.
 
 
🔗 Check them out: www.capeprivacy.com
 
 
💰 Business Model
Cape Privacy has an enterprise-facing SaaS subscription model based on an annual license agreement. Exact pricing is usage-based, measured by the amount of data being processed by Cape's cloud.
 
📈 Traction and Fundraising
  • Raised total of $25 million ($20 million Series A, $5 million seed) led by Evolution Equity Partners, with participation from Tiger Global Management, Version One, Radical Ventures, and prominent angels such as Tom Noonan
  • Focusing currently on financial services, but already planning to expand into life sciences
 
👫 Founder(s)
  • Gavin Uhma, CTO: Previously Co-Founder & CEO @ sidestory, Co-Founder & CTO @ GoInstant (Acquired by Salesforce), Information Management BS @ Cape Breton University
  • Morten Dahl, Chief Scientist: Previously Machine Learning Engineer @ Datadog, Lead Cryptographer @ Snips, CS PhD @ Aarhus University, CS MS & BS @ Aalborg University
  • Ben DeCoste, Platform: Previously Co-Founder @ sidestory, Senior Member of Technical Staff @ Salesforce, CS BS @ Dalhousie University
  • Ian Livingstone: Currently Advisor @ Concrete Ventures and Highline Beta, Board Member @ Halihax, Angel Investor; Previously Head of Engineering @ Cape Privacy, Co-Founder & CTO @ Manifold.co, Principal Member of Technical Staff @ Salesforce, Software Engineer @ GoInstant, CS BS @ Dalhousie University
 
🔮 Our Analysis
Cape Privacy is poised to become the global leader in encrypted learning with a clearly differentiated product, a team with deep domain expertise, and a thoughtful enterprise-facing go-to-market. The practice of developing data science/machine learning applications in a privacy-preserving manner is often an afterthought for companies, but the heightened awareness around consumer data collection, usage, and monetization, in addition to the increased deployment of AI models in areas like health care and banking, will necessitate data protection. Cape Privacy will enable seamless and worry-free collaboration between multiple stakeholders as ML workflows and infrastructures mature. While Cape Privacy may compete with open-source solutions, the team has accomplished many technical feats at the intersection of cryptography and ML, such that it’s very difficult to replicate and productize. Cape Privacy’s single beachhead market (financial services) is large enough to give Cape the coveted Unicorn status. With plans to launch into additional industries like life sciences and government, one can only imagine the potential of the cloud platform once Cape Privacy develops solutions for use cases across verticals.
 
📚 Further Reading
 
 
Made with 💜 by the Unicorner Team 🦄
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🎁 Bonus Content!
Your Unicorner editors were both out partying this week. It wasn't just any party though: it was LA Tech Week, a week-long series of events bringing together the tech crowd in Los Angeles. We loved meeting up with some of you, and hope to meet more of our awesome readers in the near future. Check out this New York Times article discussing what LA Tech Week is all about—Unicorner was mentioned!
 
 
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