• ID Ward, a privacy-focused blockchain-based customer data platform (CDP), raised EUR 1.1 million (~USD 1.2 million) in a seed round funding led by Blacksheep Ventures. 

• The funding would be used to expand its product and marketing teams to drive adoption of its platform. 

• ID Ward, which operates out of theUK and Spain, provides marketers with access to anonymized data of target audiences without relying on third-party data. The firm leverages edge processing and machine learning (ML) technologies to extract relevant insights while preserving the privacy of personal data with end-to-end encryption. ID Ward has received funding from the European Commission for developing a privacy-preserving universal customer ID.    

<ul><li>Analyst QuickTake: As the deadline for the elimination of third-party cookies from popular web browsers draws near (scheduled to be eliminated from Google Chrome by end-2023), interest in developing a new privacy-preserving industry standard is likely to become a priority. Hence, firms such as ID Ward are likely to continue to gain traction for their tools and see growing investor interest over time. Other established firms such as Zeotap (a CDP) and Epsilon (a marketing services agency) have also launched their own initiatives to create an alternative to customer IDs for a cookieless world. </ul>