Australian start-up, Meeco, recently announced its rapid global expansion off the back of an A$3.2 million seed funding round from a syndicate of private investors. Part of the burgeoning trust economy, Meeco is an award winning platform to give individuals the ability to store, exchange and negotiate the use of personal data on their own terms.
Founded by Katryna Dow in 2013, Meeco is a world first life-management platform designed with privacy at its core together with a business model, which enables mutual value to be created through the transparent and permissioned exchange of personal data. It also includes a social network “post and back-up” system called MeCast. Meeco users achieve a higher level of personal control and can gain equity and value from organisations in return for the data they share.
As part of its global expansion Meeco recently launched its new initiative Meeco Labs in Europe and Australia, a program designed for global enterprises and governments to trial new trust based customer outcomes in an objective and consumer-centric environment. Meeco Labs removes cost and compliance for enterprise and government agencies, resulting in new business models based on the redistribution of shared value through the ecosystem. Meeco Labs will operate in the United States in the coming year.
Do what you want with your personal data
Founder and CEO of Meeco, Katryna Dow, said, “There is an enormous shift in attitude towards data privacy amongst citizens and brands. This is being driven by two trends – growing consumer awareness and concern about how personal data is being used and abused, coupled with significant changes to privacy policy and law in Europe and other territories.
“Prior to Meeco, the power to capture, analyse and profit from personal data has resided with businesses, government and social networks. Meeco flips that model entirely around so that the individual is an equal participant in the value created, controlling the use of his or her personal data derived from every day occurrences and transactions.”
“Expanding our operations to Europe was a natural step given the region’s focus on digital innovation, privacy and the newly passed privacy legislation that will take effect in 2017. With Meeco Labs, enterprise and government can test new business models in conjunction with customers or citizens using their data on a permission basis thus proving out business and customer value prior to substantial investments being made.”
Meeco Labs programs result in behavioural insights from real customers, and a series of new enterprise products, experiences and go-to-market strategies.
Key findings from the Meeco Labs initiative to date, include:
- 95 per cent of participants want to use their data as an asset to exchange with organisations post-program;
- 99 per cent of program participants intend to use the Meeco consent layer* when sharing data with organisations in the future;
Meeco is fast becoming a recognised leader in the personal data management market, winning the European Identity and Cloud (EIC) special award and the Amplify People’s Choice Award for Innovation in 2015. To further propel its expansion throughout Europe and into new markets, Meeco will launch a Series A capital raising round in late April.
* For European enterprises Meeco’s consent management layer provides compliance to the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulations as well as supporting capability for the Payment Service Directive 2 (PSD2) legislation
