Didomi has announced its Series B round of USD$40m (£29m) led by Elephant and Breega. The Paris-based startup helps developers and companies manage their users’ consent and preferences across their online and off-line channels.

This funding will allow Didomi to support strong growth in its European home markets, finance its expansion to the United States and invest in its technology platform globally.

"Jawad, Raphaël and I have co-founded Didomi to make privacy easier for everyone and an obvious choice for companies," said Romain Gauthier, CEO, Didomi. "This fundraising is a major milestone on our journey to deliver on this mission. Not only does it reward the hard work of Didomi’s entire team, scattered across the globe, but it also gives us resources to keep building the best technology for our existing and upcoming clients. We are happy that Elephant shares our ambitions, and that Breega has renewed their trust in our project. We look forward to helping brands and publishers make customer journeys more transparent and trustworthy through a delightful consent and preferences management experience."

Privacy has become a strategic priority for companies globally

Consumer sentiment studies all converge on the importance of privacy in any customer relationship. A recent European consumer survey showed that 80% of consumers pay attention to privacy before purchase, and about two-thirds of consumers modify their purchasing decisions in line with companies’ privacy commitments.

Regulators across the globe have taken notice. Gartner estimates that by 2023, 65% of the world’s population will have its personal data covered by bespoke regulation, mostly to address growing concerns around privacy and national sovereignty.

Technology is also witnessing massive tectonic shifts with the gradual phasing out of third-party trackers, the complete reinvention of targeted advertising models, and more generally the reduction of the availability of data for which no permission has been granted in large ecosystems like iOS.

"Companies are now realising they need to take action. What started as a pure compliance preoccupation, in the early days of GDPR in Europe and CCPA in California, has since become a global concern by companies of all sizes to foster trust through better permission management in the technology stack," said Maximilien Bacot, Co-founder & Managing Partner of Breega. "Didomi is proposing popular and widely-adopted solutions for organisations seeking to address these challenges."

Helping organisations embed permission into every customer touchpoint

With Didomi solutions, companies like Giphy, Rakuten, UKG, Weight Watchers International and Wolters Kluwer get detailed analytics about consent behaviors that help them measure and optimise the benefits of transforming their user journey towards more privacy. This consent management tool can easily be customised and deployed across web, mobile, in-app, and even connected TV environments.

"Didomi has taken a developer-first approach as a platform,” said Jawad Stouli, CTO, Didomi. “With open APIs, public developer documentation and open-source SDKs for popular frameworks, our solutions are a good fit for tech teams and developers for all consent and preference management use cases. Didomi allows tech teams to easily embed consent into their apps and systems, lowering the cost of compliance and removing technical hurdles to invest in privacy, which is much needed across today’s markets."

Investing in technology and expanding into the US

The funding will allow Didomi to develop a more convenient, self-service platform upon which organisations of all sizes can create consent and preference management interfaces. Beyond building world-class technology, the funding will also be used to expand its global footprint by opening an office in the US.

To date, Didomi has raised a total of USD$46m (£33m), which includes USD$6m (£4.3m) in a previous Series A round led by Breega with the support of Bpifrance.

"Consent and preference management is becoming a must have for global businesses, and Didomi is at the forefront of innovation in this market," said Peter Fallon, General Partner, Elephant. “This investment is a testament to Didomi's unique approach, differentiated technology, and the team's ability to execute. The company has grown rapidly and is well positioned to continue scaling in the US and other international markets. We are excited to be working with Romain, Jawad, Raphaël and the team, and we look forward to many more future milestones."