Custodea secures €350K to give European SMEs greater control over their data

Custodea, an AI-driven European data platform aimed at enabling SMEs to centralise and manage their business data, has successfully secured €350,000 in seed funding from investors within its network. The startup tackles the issue of data fragmentation, which often plagues SMEs who rely on manual data exports, spreadsheets, and input from various teams to maintain an updated view of their operations.

Custodea accomplishes this by consolidating data from multiple business systems, such as Exact Online, HubSpot, and Personio, into a secure private environment. This ensures that businesses can access current data without the need for manual exports or complex data migrations.

The platform seamlessly integrates with widely-used tools such as Excel, Power BI, Looker, Tableau, and dbt, or can serve as a foundation for AI models and agents. Moreover, Custodea offers an AI assistant capable of answering queries and analysing a company's data, including revenue trends and outstanding invoices.

Gregory Aerts, co-founder of Custodea, emphasises the growing need for businesses to exercise greater control over their data as AI adoption surges. With Custodea, he aims to bridge the technology gap between large corporations, which boast substantial budgets and dedicated data teams, and SMEs. By providing SMEs with data they fully own, stored and managed within the EU, Custodea enables these companies to harness AI capabilities.

Aerts asserts that data has become a form of power, and Custodea empowers SMEs with this power, positioning them in the AI era.

The platform is designed to give businesses full control over how their information is stored and accessed. Connections are read-only by default, and customers retain the authority to determine who can access their data, with the ability to revoke access at any time. Custodea's infrastructure is exclusively located within the European Union, positioning it as an alternative for SMEs seeking to retain control over their business data while continuing to utilise existing software.

With the newly acquired funding, Custodea will concentrate on launching its platform and expanding the service across European markets.