BlueTalon Data Privacy Firm Acquired By Microsoft

Microsoft has acquired a data privacy and governance service called BlueTalon. BlueTalon helps companies determine and set up policies for data access by employees. It then handles the enforcement of those policies and has tools for access and oversight.

“Today we are excited to announce the acquisition of BlueTalon, a leading provider of Unified Data Access Control solutions for modern data platforms,” said Rohan Kumar, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Azure Data, in an announcement. “BlueTalon works with leading Fortune 100 companies to eliminate data security blind spots and gain visibility and control of data. BlueTalon provides a customer-proven, data-centric solution for data access management and auditing across the diverse system’s resident in modern data estates.”

The terms of the deal were not released, but BlueTalon had raised in the neighborhood of $27.4 million before it was acquired. Past investors in the company include Bloomberg Beta, Maverick Ventures, Signia Venture Partners and Stanford’s StartX fund.

“The IP and talent acquired through BlueTalon bring unique expertise at the apex of big data, security, and governance,” Kumar said. “This acquisition will enhance our ability to empower enterprises across industries to digitally transform while ensuring the right use of data with centralized data governance at scale through Azure.”

BlueTalon workers will join the Azure Data Governance group and work on improving Microsoft’s abilities in the space. As businesses become more and more data-heavy, there’s going to be a need for systems like the one BlueTalon developed, so Microsoft is looking to the future.

“As we began exploring partnership opportunities with various hyper-scale cloud providers to better serve our customers, Microsoft deeply impressed us,” BlueTalon CEO Eric Tilenius said. “The Azure Data team was uniquely thoughtful and visionary when it came to data governance. We found them to be the perfect fit for us in both mission and culture. So when Microsoft asked us to join forces, we jumped at the opportunity.”