Informatica acquires Privitar to boost data access management

Enterprise data management vendor Informatica on Wednesday said that it has acquired London-based startup Privitar for an undisclosed sum in order to boost the data access management capabilities of its Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC).  

IDMC, which was launched in May 2021, is a suite that sits on top of enterprise databases and manages data from various data sources by ingesting, cataloging, and applying data governance rules.

The acquisition is significant because the proliferation of generative AI has sparked enterprise concerns about data security, and enforcement of data access management policies is thought to one way of tackling such concerns.

Privitar, which was founded by Gerard Buggy, Jason du Preez, and John Taysom, currently offers a data privacy platform. After the acquisition, Informatica’s IDMC platform will combine Privitar’s data access management capabilities with its Claire AI engine to automate application of policy-based and access controls, the companies said in a statement.

“Adding Privitar’s data access management and privacy solution to the IDMC platform supports critical, high-growth use cases around cloud analytics, governance, data mesh, and data marketplace,” they added.

In May, Informatica added generative AI capabilities to its IDMC suite via the addition of ClaireGPT and AI copilot.

Informatica’s acquisition of Privitar is expected to close in the third quarter. The startup has raised approximately $150 million from investors including Warburg Pincus, Accel Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Citi, HSBC Venture Capital Coverage Group, IQ Capital, Partech, and ABN AMRO Ventures.