In today’s episode of ‘Start-up of the Week’, International Finance will talk about Dataships, an Ireland-based start-up, which has specialised itself in the domain of data privacy compliance-related services.
The start-up, which has over 70 customers in the form of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), has built up software that helps these client companies to manage their databases to guarantee these ventures’ compliance with existing data laws.
Helping SMEs To Navigate ‘Compliance Path’
Google is planning to ban third-party cookies by as early as 2023. Another tech giant Apple too is making changes to its policies. Amid all these, Dataships aims to help SMEs make their own first-party cookie strategy.
“We optimize your email marketing consent collection for growth and compliance,” the venture commented, while stating that availing the Dublin-based start-up’s services helps the client businesses to accelerate their email list growth and increase the overall revenue flow. Also, these clients get an opportunity to avoid the risks of being fined and the resultant reputational damage.
“Eliminate the uncertainties with comprehensive records for every contact and consent interaction. We optimize your checkout’s email marketing consent collection for growth and compliance,” the start-up stated further.
In short, Dataships helps its clients to use email marketing laws to their advantage, when it comes to staying on the right side of compliance and increasing the revenue flow.
“With Dataships you can use these (email marketing) laws to your advantage to maximize your growth potential while mitigating the compliance risk and instilling confidence in your marketing efforts. Add our app and start supercharging your email list growth today for free,” the company stated, as it is providing the best aspects of its tie-up with Boston-based tech giant Klaviyo (a marketing automation platform used primarily for email marketing and SMS marketing) to its client businesses.
From providing comprehensive validation and audit-ready consent logs to enabling its clients to enjoy the benefits of the Klaviyo list management and status syncing, Dataships is changing the digital marketing space big time.
Dataships launched its app in January 2023, through which clients can start their email marketing consent collection-related journey initially through a 14-day free trial, followed by an array of packages. These packages range from free ones to ones having a monthly subscription fee of USD 600, through which Dataships’ clients can reach 1,000 to 50,000 business contacts (email subscribers) verified by the start-up.
Dataships’ SME Vision
In short, Dataships helps its clients to collect, verify, sync, and maintain their email marketing audience, as its ‘Rules Engine’ validates consent; cross-references opt-out lists, and generates audit-ready compliance logs. Just like its tie-up with Everything Klaviyo, Dataships has also entered into a strategic pact with Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify, under which the start-up’s email-marketing ecosystem has been synced with the Ontario-based venture.
Describing his company’s purpose to ‘SiliconRepublic’ in 2021, Dataships’ co-founder Michael Storan stated, “Between GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), cookies and major forces such as Google and Apple constantly changing the rules of engagement, data privacy compliance has become unnecessarily confusing for business owners and marketers,” while adding that his venture was looking to unravel these complications and show companies the “happy path of compliance” and the benefit of having compliant first-party data policies.
“The future will be defined by having first-party access to your customers so it’s table stakes to have healthy data relationships with them, or as we call them: Dataships,” he remarked.
In September 2021, Dataships was recognized as one of eight Irish companies shortlisted for the inaugural Ireland qualifier of KPMG’s Global Tech Innovator competition. In the same year, the start-up also raised USD 3 million in seed funding to scale up its data privacy tech.
The venture also received investment from the NDRC accelerator programme at Dublin-based start-up hub Dogpatch Labs in 2021.
Assessing Dataships’ Market Impact
VITHIT Drinks’ website became GDPR compliant with GDPR after the beverage brand tied up with Dataships. The tie-up also helped the business to increase its email subscribers.
United Kingdom-based Feelfree, which makes kayaks (small, narrow human-powered watercraft), relaunched its brand recently, tied up with Dataships and became GDPR compliant.
“It has given us great peace of mind knowing who we can and can’t email market to and also ensuring we capture any additional marketable contacts. The team are always quick to reply and happy to help, a pleasure to work with,” Feelfree described the strategic tie-up in these following words.
“We’ve been using Dataships for months now and it has made our lives considerably easier. Knowing that Dataships has our marketing compliance taken care of gives us peace of mind. We’ve also seen massive growth in our marketing audiences which has had a direct impact on increasing revenue. Not to mention they have excellent support as well that’s always been quick to reply,” stated Ireland-based Parkwest Workwear Centre, while describing its tie-up with Dataships and its impact on their operations.
Other Ireland-based SMEs like Moyee Coffee, Louis Copeland and Claddagh Records all share the same positive feeling about being onboarded into Dataships’ world.
The Road Ahead
“Start-ups and SMBs generally have no idea how to begin approaching the myriad of new data privacy laws and standards being issued. We’re excited to see Dataships step in with their seamless solution for companies like Kerrygold and Zipp Mobility,” stated Urban Innovation Fund managing partner Julie Lein in 2021.
In fact, Dataships has been making waves in the start-up world as a ‘one-stop shop for data privacy’. In 2020, it secured funding of €500,000 and participated in Acceleprise, a SaaS start-up accelerator based in Silicon Valley.
With Google and Apple planning to go strict on the third-party cookies on their platforms in the coming months, Dataships has an excellent opportunity to change the SME sector game by helping the industry stakeholders to make their own first-party cookie strategy.
Image Credits: Dataships