Zendata Secures $2M to Transform AI Governance and Data Privacy through Innovative No-Code Platform

Zendata, a San Francisco-based startup, has emerged from stealth mode this week with the announcement of a $2 million seed funding round led by PayPal Ventures, First-hand Alliance, Geek Ventures, and Altari Ventures. The company is set to transform how organizations manage data security, AI governance, and privacy throughout the entire data lifecycle.

Founded by industry veterans Narayana Pappu and Pedro Pinango, Zendata offers a no-code platform that provides comprehensive insights and control over data usage. This empowers businesses to make informed decisions and ensure compliance with evolving data privacy and AI governance regulations.

Zendata’s Repository Scanner monitors data risks across an organization’s GitHub repositories and webhooks, providing key metrics and assigning a PII Sharing Severity rating to help businesses prioritize and mitigate potential vulnerabilities.

Revolutionizing AI and Data Privacy

In a recent interview, CEO Narayana Pappu discussed the core principles of Zendata’s platform: “Our approach addresses three crucial aspects—context (how information is being used), data flow (who it's shared with), and awareness (alignment with internal policies). Zendata effectively tackles these challenges across client-side, application, and model layers.”

The platform safeguards sensitive data and reduces risks by enabling organizations to detect oversharing with third parties, validating data for model creation, and ensuring secure transmission and logging of data.

Privacy Policy Analysis Tool utilizes Legal NLP to identify collected information and its purpose, offering insights into potential gaps in privacy practices and delivering a Privacy Policy Complexity Score.

Seamless Implementation and Compliance

Zendata's no-code solution ensures rapid implementation, democratized access, continuous compliance, scalability, and centralized control. “While implementing a data risk management program typically takes 6–8 months, Zendata’s platform allows businesses to swiftly adapt to new regulations, lessen dependency on engineering resources, and effectively manage data risks,” said Pappu.

The startup has achieved early customer success by securing public-facing data for global companies and managing privacy risks associated with AI models. The platform has also received positive reviews on G2, a top software review site.

Bridging Engineering and Policy in AI Adoption

As the roles of CIO, CISO, and CDO converge in the age of AI, Zendata aims to connect engineering (data creators) and policy (data managers) organizations. The new funding will facilitate enhancements to the platform’s remediation capabilities and enable integrations with Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) solutions.

Furthermore, Zendata's participation in Race Capital’s selective Topline program, which has formerly backed companies like Databricks, is expected to unlock new growth opportunities and future funding avenues.

As data breaches proliferate and cybercriminals exploit system vulnerabilities, Zendata’s solution is well-positioned to meet the increasing demand for effective AI and data risk management. With a vision of promoting transparent and equitable consumer data practices, Zendata aims to establish a virtuous cycle of data trust.