{"id":456321,"date":"2026-06-02T01:59:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T01:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/456321\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T01:59:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T01:59:14","slug":"datamasque-raises-7m-founder-says-his-product-is-better-than-openais-new-free-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/456321\/","title":{"rendered":"DataMasque raises $7m, founder says his product is better than OpenAI\u2019s new free tool"},"content":{"rendered":"

The funds arrived just as ChatGPT maker OpenAI released a new Privacy Filter<\/a> product that matches some of DataMasque\u2019s abilities, for free \u2013 on the face of things, drawing the Kiwi company into the \u201cSaaSpolcapse\u201d scenario now facing so many software companies in so many sectors.<\/p>\n

First, a quick re-cap of what DataMasque does.<\/p>\n

When companies build new applications, train AI models, or run analytics, software developers need high-quality data to test their systems. <\/p>\n

Traditionally, companies either had to use real customer data (which creates massive security and regulatory compliance risks) or hand-craft fake data (which is time-consuming and often lacks real-world complexity). <\/p>\n

\"DataMasqueDataMasque co-founders Grant de Leeuw and Greg Daniel.<\/p>\n

DataMasque\u2019s latest tool not only masks PII information in structured data \u2013 say, my patient ID in a medical database \u2013 but also the unstructured data that lies scattered around any organisation; say, my name as a patient in an email, Word document or a call transcript.<\/p>\n

And if Chris Keall was masked to, say, \u201cJohn Smith\u201d, it would be John Smith in every mention. <\/p>\n

DataMasque founder Grant de Leeuw says other solutions will simply blank out a name, breaking connections, and OpenAI\u2019s PrivacyFilter only has shallow masking options.<\/p>\n

Cheaper than the \u2018free\u2019 option<\/p>\n

To appeal to the bean counters as well as the IT crowd, he points out that no corporate-grade AI is free. <\/p>\n

Many large organisations have plans where they pay by the token \u2013 and data masking can rip through them.<\/p>\n

DataMasque recently posted<\/a>: \u201cA 10 GB workload through Claude APIs (which can be run on AWS Bedrock for privacy) costs around US$37,500 ($62,800) for synthetic generation (US$15 [$25] per million output tokens, since the model is mostly producing) or US$45,000 ($75,320) for detection ($IS18 per million blended, since input and output volumes match). <\/p>\n

\u201cThe same 10 GB through DataMasque\u2019s Local AI Engine on a single $0.80\/hour AWS GPU instance is roughly $1300, about $0.50 per million tokens \u2013 operating in your environment, with the same compute and with no data leaving your network.\u201d<\/p>\n

And bear in mind experts say we still don\u2019t know the true cost of AI.<\/p>\n

The industry is still in a \u201cland grab\u201d phase, similar to the early days of the streaming wars, or the halcyon lockdown era when services like DoorDash and Uber Eats were heavily subsidised by venture capital.<\/p>\n

On-prem option<\/p>\n

De Leeuw also points out that as long as you\u2019ve got a GPU (graphics processing unit, or the main chip used for AI training and testing), you can run DataMasque entirely on-premise (that is, on your own company\u2019s computers) using no tokens at all, \u201ceven for very large databases\u201d.<\/p>\n

De Leeuw stresses he\u2019s \u201cenabling AI\u201d through DataMasque being able to test AI apps and services. And DataMasque has partnerships with the three biggest hyperscalers: AWS, Microsoft and Google. <\/p>\n

But his point is that if you want to do everything in-house, you can.<\/p>\n

Need for speed<\/p>\n

The final part of his slapdown is that DataMasque is much faster.<\/p>\n

He says his product uses algorithms to identify and mask data.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know a credit card is a credit card because it\u2019s passing checksum,\u201d he says, referring to the formula, which should produce a number ending in \u201c0\u2033 for a legitimate card, that banks and websites use to assess if a credit card number is kosher or mis-typed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr we know it\u2019s a social security number because it\u2019s passing checksum.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhereas with AI, it\u2019s still a probabilistic system. So where AI can de-identify a row every two seconds for a table with eight columns, we can do 50,000 rows every three seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n

That matters if you\u2019re a client with billions of fields, de Leeuw says.<\/p>\n

On DataMasque\u2019s books, those include \u201ca top four bank in Australia\u201d, \u201ca top four bank in New Zealand\u201d and the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (which wrangles the US state\u2019s Medicaid programme).<\/p>\n

Why they\u2019re back for more<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first invested in 2023, few enterprises had recognised the sensitive data problem that the DataMasque team saw,\u201d OIF partner Isabella Rich says.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, it\u2019s blocking nearly every serious AI rollout. <\/p>\n

\u201cGrant and the team are building the data infrastructure layer for enterprise AI, and we\u2019re proud to be doubling down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Icehouse Ventures principal Bex Gidall,says: \u201cWith a lean team based largely in New Zealand, DataMasque has managed to win highly competitive enterprise deals against far better-resourced global competitors.\u201d<\/p>\n

And from the newcomers, Wavemaker managing partner Paul Santos said: \u201c[DataMasque] has helped customers to mask data seven times faster, reducing traditional masking workflows from days to hours. The strength of its value proposition has enabled the company to win multiple customers in BFSI [banking, financial services and insurance], government and telecommunications globally.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next?<\/p>\n

The new funds will be used \u201cpredominantly for US expansion,\u201d de Leeuw says.<\/p>\n

The US$4m ($6.7m) is effectively a seed extension. <\/p>\n

Wavemaker (which now holds a 12% stake) approached his firm. <\/p>\n

Its Series A round will be a lot higher, and likely US-led, the co-founder says, as the start-up seeks to raise its profile in North America. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve the best product in the market, just no one\u2019s heard of us. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to get the word out,\u201d De Leeuw says.<\/p>\n

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald\u2019s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The funds arrived just as ChatGPT maker OpenAI released a new Privacy Filter product that matches some of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[112271,231899,51,9442,3269,138,231898,311,4975,293,185,130,5971,117,111,139,69,110864,384,6903,21311,4460,11596,165703,3240,312,2437,8183,26849,25093,1037,131,7563,6305],"class_list":["post-456321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-7m","tag-aibased","tag-auckland","tag-better","tag-build","tag-business","tag-datamasque","tag-founder","tag-free","tag-his","tag-is","tag-more","tag-need","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-openais","tag-people","tag-privacy","tag-problem","tag-product","tag-raises","tag-reallife","tag-recently","tag-says","tag-security","tag-software","tag-solved","tag-speed","tag-startup","tag-than","tag-those","tag-tool"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}