Four years since launch, file-sharing and rights management platform Digify has helped 60,000 users in 138 countries up their information security, among them some high-profile financial brands.
Digify has evolved from what its founders once described as “like a Snapchat for business content” into a complete document security solution for finance, investment, legal, consulting, training, life sciences and technology industries. They even have a feature that allows you to self-destruct – or unsend – email attachments sent through Gmail!
Interviewing co-founder and chief executive Augustine Lim, we explored how a financial business specifically can benefit from Digify’s technology.
How did you and your co-founders identify the need for this information security platform?
One day I had to send confidential documents externally to another company. The documents contained proprietary intellectual property and I felt uncomfortable sending the information because I didn’t know what would happen to these files, and who would eventually see them. There was no way of taking back the information, but despite the uncertainty and discomfort, I still had to send them.
Company executives must have been encountering this problem all the time, and yet I couldn’t find any easy or convenient way of protecting the information shared externally. Many document security vendors provided products that were complicated to get started, expensive and were out-dated in terms of technology and interface. This is what inspired me and my co-founders to build Digify.
There was no way of taking back the information, but despite the uncertainty and discomfort, I still had to send them.
What kinds of finance brands do you work with?
We have a variety of finance clients from financial services companies to investment firms, including VCs and PE Funds that use Digify to share confidential financial documents with their LPs and investors.
What are the risks financial brands want to protect themselves against?
Financial firms need to have control over their sensitive information and protect themselves against unintended leaks and compliance issues. An unintended leak of sensitive information to the press or to unintended recipients can result in reputational damage or even financial losses.
Financial companies’ concerns are centered around making sure that the information they send is secure, protected and tracked. That’s where a virtual data room comes in.
Financial services businesses typically use data rooms for a slew of business transactions including venture capital fundraising, buyer/seller due diligence, M&A, joint ventures, investor communications as well as for the general protection of internal documents.
When choosing a data room, companies in finance are looking for the right balance of ease of use and security, and timely customer support for them and their recipients – the all-important investors or buyers of financial assets. They typically run a number of time-sensitive projects simultaneously so the less time they have to dedicate to setting up, implementing and figuring out the software, the faster they can close their deals.
An unintended leak of sensitive information to the press or to unintended recipients can result in reputational damage or even financial losses.
How does Digify help boost information security and protect against these risks?
Digify offers a complete feature set to secure, track and protect files. Depending on the security permissions set by the sender, recipients will need to identify themselves and agree to custom legal terms before they can view the files. The copying, printing and downloading of files can be restricted with rights management technologies. The document can be watermarked to each individual recipient. Each file is also tracked in terms of where and when the file is opened.
Our technology can also help to dissuade screenshots. We are the only provider that has a complete, unified platform for protecting information, as we’ve built the underlying rights management platform instead of licensing it from others.
As a result, our rights management technology seamlessly integrates with our document security platform, enabling us to protect different types of digital assets and formats (e.g., files, data rooms, email attachments) without the need to integrate with, or license external software. This also results in cost savings which we can pass on to our customers.
Not just a case of protecting your own information, all finance brands have a responsibility to protect their customers’ data also. So, are you GDPR compliant?
In time, machine learning and artificial intelligence will be trusted with all of our security needs. So, can we bank on machine learning for security?
