Zekavat Investment Group, Gary Vaynerchuk, Michael Kassan, Tom Chavez, and others invest in the first true consumer-first data privacy and consent engagement platform built by marketers

Qonsent, the first data privacy enablement and consent value exchange platform built for consumers and brands, announced it has raised $5 million in seed funding to further develop and scale the company’s data privacy and consent solution. The funding is backed by Zekavat Investment Group, Gary Vaynerchuk, Michael Kassan, Tom Chavez, Crosscut Ventures, Brand New Matter, Marc DeBevoise, Lunch Partners, and other top tier investors.

Qonsent was conceived and built by leading media, advertising, entertainment, and technology executives who saw a glaring need for a solution that would truly put the power over personally identifiable information (PII) back in control of the consumers and make first-person consent easy. Qonsent provides consumers with complete insight into how brands collect, use, and store their personal information based on clear value exchange. The solution also enables brands, advertisers, and publishers to retool their approach and build consumer trust as well as provide a better customer experience. The solution works wherever brands engage their consumers, including via distributed consent UI/UX products that are integrated into existing privacy enablement and marketing technology offerings.

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“Data privacy and ethics are the no. 1 priority going into 2022 from governments to brands and consumers. This is the most pressing topic on everyone’s minds, largely due to changing consumer behavior, but also due to new and upcoming regulations and laws,” said Jesse Redniss, CEO and co-founder, Qonsent. “We saw a real pain point between consumers and brands that has been eroding consumer trust and putting brands in a precarious position. Our goal is to empower every consumer to understand why, how, where, and when their data is being used as well as stored, while also giving brands a means to regain consumer trust and provide superior customer experiences.”

The founding team includes Jesse Redniss, CEO and co-founder formerly of Warner Media, Brave Ventures, and NBC Universal; Stephano Kim, President, and co-founder formerly of Warner Media, ATT, and Springhouse Capital; Will Lowry, CTO, formerly AT&T Mobility, Seth Redniss, Chief Legal Counsel and Chairwoman Andrea Redniss, currently EVP at MediaLink. The funding will help build the rapidly growing team, finalize the consumer wallet application, and deliver on industry-first initiatives like Qonsent Graph.

Qonsent Graph is a new approach to tracking consumer behavior that helps brands, marketers, and platforms understand what experiences, offers, and value exchanges will enable a two-way dialogue to rebuild brand transparency as well as consumer trust. This offering will be the new solution for all those marketing to consumers to replace outdated, and now illegal, approaches such as data scraping and universal cookies. The Qonsent Graph will provide granular insights in a compliant manner forging a new era of trust and connection with loyal consumers.

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The Qonsent product encompasses a back-end data privacy platform, B2B2C White Labeled Consumer UI/UX Products and services, and a consumer app. Additional ways for brands and publishers to use the solution include Qonsent-in API services, a SmartQontract ledger-based agreement system, near real-time ID validation and match linking, as well as a resolution manager. The solution is also easy to integrate and deploy with current popular SaaS platforms like Salesforce, Snowflake, Oracle, Adobe, and Amazon Web Services to provide a turn-key solution for marketers.

Qonsent has already inked partnerships with leaders in this space when it comes to various aspects of the privacy landscape. TransUnion and Ketch are two founding relationships that will help underpin the end-to-end, consumer-first privacy solution.