ID Ward, a data privacy startup based in London and Barcelona, has closed a €1.1 million funding round to expand its product and marketing teams and drive adoption of its privacy-focused, decentralised advertising technology across Europe and the UK. The round was led by the specialist MadTech VC BlackSheep Ventures, and includes SyndicateRoom’s Super Angel Fund and notable UK Angel investors.

The investment comes at a time when publishers and advertisers are scrambling to deal with the sunsetting of third party cookies and device IDs, which is expected to cost the industry tens of $billions in lost revenues if no solution is found.

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Digital marketing and privacy have long been seen as a zero-sum game, but changing regulations and the moves of Apple and Google are fundamentally reshaping this trillion-dollar market. “The media industry must promote new approaches to personal data management“ says Dr Mattia Fosci, ID Ward’s co-founder and CEO. “Decoupling marketing effectiveness from personal data is the only way to stop mass surveillance without negatively impacting publishers and broadcaster business.”

ID Ward has created a new standard for privacy and digital advertising based on patent-pending, on-device technology. Unlike other ‘cookieless solutions’, the product enables walled garden-levels of targeting accuracy, retargeting and attribution without cookies and without collecting personal data, and it can be a game-changer for publishers, advertisers and consumers.

“The marketing industry of the future must respect consumer privacy and preserve performance for the marketer. The adoption of an independent solution based on anonymised data can be the foundation of a new, open marketing ecosystem. ID Ward will enable marketers and publishers to leave behind cookie deprecation and walled garden dependency” says Giovanni Strocchi (Partner at BlackSheep Ventures). Marco Caradonna adds: “The ID Ward technology in one step ahead of any other available solution and will certainly prove to be disruptive.“

“The market needs a seismic shift towards privacy-first advertising, and with this funding round we are one step closer to delivering it” concluded Fosci. “We want to work with leading publishers, advertisers and privacy rights groups to make the internet a better place. We solved the technical puzzle, now marketers and publishers can use our technology to drive change. We all owe it to readers and consumers”

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