Biza.io, the Aussie Consumer Data Right (CDR) firm, announced it has raised $7.5 million in a Series A funding round led by OIF Ventures and Jelix Ventures. Biza.io helps banks, financial institutions, energy retailers and data economy participants navigate the highly regulated CDR ecosystem, and comply and innovate within the Australian data sharing landscape.
What is the market offering of Biza.io?
Founded in 2017, the Brisbane-based Biza.io offers cloud-based Software-as-a-Service solutions for Data Holders and Data Recipients built to meet the CDR specifications and rules mandated by the Australian Government Treasury and the ACCC. It also offers its enterprise data store (Data Store as a Service) to enable CDR Data to be leveraged inside companies.
Off the back of the initial deadline for CDR compliance amongst the banks on July 1st 2021, Biza.io has experienced rapid growth as demand for its services continues to grow. Its success in supporting clients to enter the CDR led to 550% customer growth in the past 18 months along with the expansion of the team from two employees in January 2021 to 15 in June 2022. The Brisbane-based start-up intends to hire another 30 people in 2022 alone.
The complexity and high costs involved in meeting the CDR obligations have put Biza’s unique Data Holder-as-a-Service solution in a strong position to support data holders and provide valuable learnings to Accredited Data Recipients that use Biza.io’s own testing environment.
Biza.io is the only pure-play CDR provider focused on data holders with proven delivery capability and was a finalist for Excellence in Open Data in the Finnie Awards 2021 and 2022.
Biza.io’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Stuart Low, who was previously Head of Innovation at Rabobank and Lead Engineer of the Data Standards Body within CSIRO, started Biza.io from his garage. Stuart Low is also a member of the Financial-grade API working group and co-author of Grant Management, an international standard for consent discovery.
What were the executive’s thoughts on the funding?
Until this capital raise, Biza.io was bootstrapped, having raised no external capital. Founder and CEO Stuart Low commented: “Welcoming OIF Ventures and Jelix Ventures as our first investors puts us in a fantastic position to capitalise on the current market opportunities.”
“Both funds’ reputations for backing high conviction companies coupled with their unparalleled experience in nurturing founders and early-stage start-ups are going to be invaluable to our growth and we’re excited to begin the next phase alongside the OIF and Jelix teams.”
“Participating in the CDR isn’t easy, and compliance is even harder, but we’ve proven that it can be done in a reasonable amount of time without costing millions of dollars,” Low said.
“We hear a lot of organisations being very vocal about the hurdles to meet their respective deadlines, but the truth is, they’re choosing the wrong partners and this leads them to focus purely on compliance. Biza customers have spent just 5% of typical build costs allowing them to invest in the innovation opportunities that the Consumer Data Right can truly enable.”
What is Biza.io’s market reach?
To date, Biza.io has confidently delivered 12 data holder brands into the CDR and provided testing capability for more than 15 organisations as part of the open data rollout. It’s already working with the energy industry ahead of that industry’s own compliance deadline having secured some of the three energy majors mandated to activate by November 2022.
Biza.io’s existing customers include Unloan, Bank First, Regional Australia Bank, Australian Military Bank, TrueLayer, The Capricornian, Family First Bank, Envestnet | Yodlee and more.
Daniel Oertli, CEO, Unloan, the digital home loan provider built by Commonwealth Bank said: “We congratulate Stuart and the Biza.io team on closing their Series A funding. The Unloan team was very impressed by Biza.io’s CDR solution, and their expertise in this complex field helped Unloan meet its data holder obligations in just four weeks at a fraction of the cost. We look forward to continuing the relationship with Biza.io as the company and the CDR evolve.”
Laurence Schwartz, General Partner, OIF Ventures said: “Stuart and the Biza.io team have built a turn-key solution for enabling Data Holders and brings unrivalled experience and technology capability as a result. Stuart has been a visionary contributor to the CDR since the very beginning and we are excited by what he and the entire team have coming up next.”
“The CDR has the potential to reshape the consumer landscape in Australia and what one can imagine through CDR is very exciting for consumers, businesses and innovation alike. We’re very proud to be partnering with Stuart and the Biza.io team on their mission to enable this important step in the digitisation of the Australian economy.” Laurence Schwartz added.
Following this Series A round of funding, a board of directors has been created, with Stuart Low and Sally Park, Biza.io’s Chief People Officer, appointed to the board.
