Enveil’s big pitch is that it is one of a very small handful of security startups that’s been working to commercialize the concept of homomorphic encryption. This is an approach to data privacy that was developed initially in a hypothetical context by researchers — in essence, it’s a cryptographic approach that involves encrypting with mathematical calculations to let companies analyze and use encrypted data without needing to decrypt it — and for some it’s most notable as a kind of holy grail concept that for many years looked like it might actually be impossible to execute.
[Ellison Anne] Williams notes that Enveil has proven those naysayers wrong by indeed finding ways to apply the concepts, along with those from other privacy-enhancing tools such as secure multiparty computation, in commercial products.
“Skepticism is awesome because it gives us a lot of opportunity to prove them wrong,” she said. “Our IP and what is special is how you take the addition and multiplication central to encryption and build them into complex business functionality.”
Enveil currently offers two products, which are both marketed under its “ZeroReveal” brand: first, an encrypted search tool that lets users keep encryption in searches even when they are made outside of their own network of apps; and second, machine-learning tool, which the company notes “enables advanced decisioning through collaborative and federated machine learning in a secure and private capacity.”
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