Entrepreneur John Roa believes in the value of privacy. After selling his design consultancy, ÄKTA, to Salesforce in 2015, he decided to spend a few

Caden launches with $3.4M to help consumers take control of their data

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2022-01-20 14:00:06

Entrepreneur John Roa believes in the value of privacy. After selling his design consultancy, ÄKTA, to Salesforce in 2015, he decided to spend a few years “off the grid” on an island in Europe.

Now, he’s back in New York City, launching Caden, a startup that allows consumers to share their data with companies and get paid for it in return. Roa wrote the business plan in the form of a thesis on the future of data privacy while he was working at Salesforce, right before he began his sabbatical, he told TechCrunch.

When he first wrote the business plan, it was “purely speculative,” Roa said. He anticipated that regulation would present challenges for companies in storing third-party, or passively collected, data, and envisioned a long-term shift to a “privacy-first” world where users own their personal data and have full control and consent over its use. 

Caden, which just came out of stealth mode with a $3.4 million pre-seed round, is Roa’s attempt towards building this world. Jerry Yang, cofounder of TechCrunch’s parent company, Yahoo!, participated in the round alongside Starwood Capital’s Barry Sternlicht, former Citigroup CTO Don Callahan, and other angel investors, according to the company.

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