InCountry Nabs $7M Seed Round

InCountry, the first data residency-as-a-service platform, today announced the launch of its service and first product offering. The company is also announcing $7 million in seed funding from Caffeinated Capital , Felicis Ventures, Ridge Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Charles River Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Parade Ventures, MState, and a series of angel investors. Already operating in 50 countries, the funding will be used to grow the team, expand product offerings and scale its services to more than 100 countries.

Today's global businesses are facing new and stringent data regulations as governments pass country-specific laws to protect data produced within their borders. These laws can be murky and change at an unpredictable rate, resulting in a large number of businesses who have yet to adapt accordingly. Even with the considerable cost of non-compliance, ranging from $800,000 fines to billion-dollar lawsuits, an estimated 74 percent of companies operating in the EU still don't meet data residency requirements.

What's standing in the way of compliance is a lack of time, resources and domain expertise. InCountry steps in to take care of all data compliance needs for companies currently or looking to operate globally. The company is launching a first of its kind, all-in-one solution that stores data locally in its country of origin, taking away compliance worries in an ever-changing regulatory landscape. Furthermore, InCountry has partnered with international law firms, and has a dedicated team of experts who act as an extended research team across the globe, ensuring data is properly hosted, processed, secured and regulated.

"I grew up internationally and lived in Europe part-time for the past five years. It's been alarming to see how consumer-facing Silicon Valley companies treat data, and I was able to personally witness reactions to data misuse, breaches and plain ignorance," said Peter Yared, CEO and founder of InCountry. "I think legislative efforts to reign in cavalier attitudes in Silicon Valley is a step in the right direction. We don't think this is a zero sum game and truly believe that sovereign rights can be respected while still creating a pro-innovation environment."

With the launch, InCountry is introducing its first product offering: Profile. InCountry Profile focuses on compliance for user profile and registration information, and is currently live and running in 50 countries across six continents. The company plans to introduce new products to handle payment, transaction and health data throughout the year.

"We're witnessing more countries signing in data laws each week, and we're only going to see those numbers increase," said Sundeep Peechu, Managing Director at Felicis Ventures. "We're excited to be leading the round and reinvesting in Peter as he launches his seventh company. He recognized the problem early on and started working on a solution nearly two years ago that goes beyond regional data centers and patchwork in-house DIY solutions."

How InCountry helps with data-compliance:

-Easy Integration: InCountry uses a combination of top-tier data centers and leading cloud service providers and its SDKs are available in popular programming languages.

-One-Click Compliance: Companies can integrate in under ten minutes, adding their respective countries with one click.

-Secure, Local Storage: Data is secured using two types of encryption in its country of origin without compliance worries.

-Outsource Your Risk: InCountry covers some of the liability by insuring three times the value of a customer's spend.

"REVL is growing very quickly in overseas markets such as China, Germany and the United Kingdom. Since we specialize in producing personalized video content, InCountry is the perfect partner for us to compliantly manage citizen data in each new market," said Eric Sanchez, CEO of REVL, a maker of automatic video capture and editing solutions for action sports companies.

The company is led by a dedicated team with experience in enterprise infrastructure software, cyber security architecture, cryptography and developer tools.

Yared is a serial entrepreneur who's had six exits worth a total of half a billion to companies like Citrix, VMWare, Sun, and Oracle, and was previously the CIO of CBS Interactive. Alex Castro joins the ranks as Chief Product Officer: he is an original member of the Amazon Web Services team, spearheaded Microsoft's CRM product, and has also worked on autonomous vehicles at Uber.

About InCountry
InCountry is a data-residency-as-a-service platform that securely stores, processes, and regulates data in its country of origin. The company helps multinational companies scale amidst an era where global data compliance regulations are changing constantly and unpredictably.

InCountry is backed by Caffeinated Capital, Felicis Ventures, Ridge Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Charles River Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Parade Ventures, and MState. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA with offices in Mexico City. To learn more, visit www.incountry.com.