Berlin, November 8th – Apheris, the platform for creating collaborative data ecosystems, has raised €8.7m to further develop its unique technology and build on its growing list of customers and partners, including BASF, Boston Consulting Group, BMW Group and JLABS, Johnson & Johnson’s innovation division. The platform enables organizations to extract value from each other’s decentralized data sets in a way that helps them overcome regulatory, technical, and commercial challenges because the data never moves from the owner’s secure environment.

Organizations are sitting on terabytes of data, but are unable to unlock the true potential of that information because of regulation, governance and privacy requirements; or because it doesn’t make commercial sense to share. By allowing organizations to access each other’s data and collaborate safely across geographical and organizational boundaries, Apheris is enabling the next wave of innovation in analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to solve the world’s biggest problems.

In 2021, private investment in AI and AI-related startups reached a record $93.5 billion. For AI to tackle humanity’s greatest challenges – from climate change to speeding up the discovery of new drugs – the organizations developing the technology require access to more complete data sets to feed machine learning algorithms. Apheris solves this by allowing data providers and data consumers to collaborate in a technically and commercially viable way.

With Apheris, data never moves from the owner’s secure environment – its platform allows all parties to have complete control over data governance, which ensures security, privacy and IP protection. Creating collaborative data ecosystems breaks down data silos, drives more efficient actions and improves machine learning capability with higher quality data.

Founded in 2019 by Robin Röhm and Michael Höh, Apheris has a team of more than 30 best-in-class specialists with the unified aim of unlocking the power of data and having a positive impact on the planet – from sustainable manufacturing to curing disease.

The seed extension round was led by Octopus Ventures, with additional funding from existing investors LocalGlobe, Dig Ventures, Another.VC and Patrick Pichette, the former CFO of Google. New investors included European healthtech investment specialists Heal Capital, Berthold von Freyberg, who co-founded Target Partners, as well as Mirco Novacovic, the founder of Instana.

Robin Röhm, Apheris CEO and co-founder said: “The greatest challenges our planet is facing can only be solved if organizations can use each other’s data. We are committed to enabling industries to work collaboratively by removing the need for data sharing and breaking down the complexities, risks, and barriers that have previously made it almost impossible. The new investment will let us take the Apheris platform to the next level, developing the use-case-agnostic solution and connecting the best and brightest in data science and AI across organizational boundaries. There is no limit to the impact we can have if we work together.” 

Connor Scanlan, Investment Manager, Octopus Ventures said: “The Apheris team is empowering organizations to solve athe critical problem of ensuring that data privacy is protected while still enabling them to benefit from the endless positive potential of data collaboration. In doing so they are unlocking huge benefits across industries. We believe in investing in the people and ideas that are changing the world, working with founders and teams building businesses with positive impact at their core. In Apheris we see these values in everything they do and we look forward to seeing them go from strength to strength.