NAVER D2SF Backs Cubig, Fostering AI Data Privacy

NAVER D2SF supports Cubig, a South Korean data protection startup.

Why it matters: In a significant move, NAVER D2SF, the startup investment arm of tech giant NAVER, has backed South Korean startup Cubig.

The company specializes in data generation and de-identification technology, offering a fresh approach to handling sensitive data.

The decision is part of NAVER D2SF's ongoing efforts to support promising early-stage startups, even in a challenging investment climate.

The Key Points

• Cubig uses Differential Privacy technology, a technique rarely seen in the South Korean tech industry. This technology adds noise to data sets to de-identify sensitive information while preserving the usefulness of the data.
  
  
• Major global companies such as Apple, Amazon, and Facebook have incorporated Differential Privacy into their services. Cubig's solution uses this technology to generate AI datasets highly similar to the original data but with minimal risk of exposing sensitive data.
  
• Cubig aims to build an AI data-sharing and analysis platform that automates data pre-processing and post-processing.
  
• NAVER D2SF has also invested in Disilo, a startup focused on data analytics through homomorphic encryption.

The Big Picture: As companies worldwide ramp up their efforts to harness artificial intelligence (AI), differential privacy technology solves the growing challenge of data privacy and silos.

Yang Sang-hwan, head of NAVER D2SF, sees Cubig's work as instrumental in addressing privacy issues in super-generative AI.

NAVER D2SF's continued support for early-stage tech startups is evidenced by its recent investments and continued acceptance of investment applications via its website.