What Retency does

Retency is a Paris-based privacy technology company that designs and operates anonymization algorithms based on Private Set Intersection and Differential Privacy, enabling cross-analysis of sensitive databases while preserving individual-level data protection. Its core platform, the Retency Privacy Engine, received a positive conformity assessment from the French data protection authority CNIL in 2017 as compliant with all three G29 anonymization criteria (resistance to singling-out, linkability, and inference) — a status the company states makes it the only technology officially audited by CNIL for anonymous DOOH audience measurement in transport settings. The product portfolio extends from the core engine into TV Impact (deterministic linking of TV exposure data to advertiser CRM and sales data), Analytics (foot traffic measurement), AI Training (differential privacy for ML model development), Private Generative SQL (natural-language querying of anonymized databases), and custom privacy solutions.

The company monetizes primarily through subscription SaaS licensing of the Privacy Engine and recurring measurement contracts for TV Impact, supplemented by professional-services revenue from custom solutions and AI training engagements. Its go-to-market is enterprise field sales targeting French broadcasters, telecom operators, large advertisers, and regulated-data enterprises, supported by strategic data-sharing partnerships with Orange Advertising, SFR, Bouygues Telecom, TF1 Pub, M6 Unlimited, and CANAL+ that collectively cover approximately 78% of French TV households. Named clients span CANAL+, Mediatransports, Orange Advertising, SFR, Bouygues Telecom, FranceTV Publicité, TF1 Pub, M6 Unlimited, Ouigo, Intermarché, and EDF. Retency is privately held as RETENCY SAS, headquartered in Paris's 8th arrondissement, with 11–50 employees and no disclosed institutional venture funding beyond a nominal 2015 round; it has accumulated multiple French industry awards between 2022 and 2024.

Name

Retency

Legal name

RETENCY SAS

Website

https://retency.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Retency is a Paris-based privacy technology company that builds CNIL-validated anonymization algorithms (Private Set Intersection and Differential Privacy) and operates them as SaaS and managed services for French broadcasters, telecom operators, advertisers, and large enterprises handling sensitive data.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Privacy-Preserving Data Analytics Software

NAICS

Software Publishers (5132), Custom Computer Programming Services (541511), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370), Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Processing & Data Preparation (7374)

akta.pro primary industry

Privacy-Preserving Data (De-identification, Anonymization, PII Redaction) (HDAAALAG)

akta.pro secondary industry

Privacy Management (Consent, DSAR, RoPA) (HDADAFAH)

Keywords

• Privacy-preserving analytics
• Differential privacy software
• Data anonymization platform
• TV advertising measurement
• Privacy enhancing technology

Headquarters

HQ city

Paris

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Retency Privacy Engine SaaS: Subscription-based SaaS licensing for cross-analysis of anonymized data. Software enables enterprises to perform secure data joins and analytics while maintaining regulatory compliance.
2. TV Impact Measurement: TV campaign measurement services providing deterministic exposure-to-sales conversion analysis. Revenue generated through measurement contracts with advertisers and broadcast partners.
3. AI Training Data Services: Training AI models using differentially private datasets that maintain accuracy comparable to non-private data while ensuring complete re-identification protection.
4. Custom Solutions: Tailored data solutions built to specific client requirements for specialized use cases and industry applications.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Retency designs and deploys proprietary anonymization algorithms (Private Set Intersection and Differential Privacy) that enable enterprises to safely exploit 100% of their sensitive data. Its core SaaS, the Retency Privacy Engine, performs secure cross-analysis and database joins on pre-anonymized datasets, while complementary products (TV Impact, Analytics, AI Training, Private Generative SQL) deliver privacy-preserving TV measurement, foot-traffic analytics, ML model training, and natural-language data access.

Product overview

Retency offers a portfolio of privacy-preserving data products built on its proprietary Retency Privacy Engine core platform. The platform uses private set intersection and differential privacy algorithms, validated by CNIL, to enable cross-database analysis without exposing individual-level data. The product range includes TV Impact (TV campaign measurement linking exposure to sales), Analytics (physical foot traffic measurement), AI Training (differential privacy for machine learning), and Private Generative SQL (natural language database querying), alongside fully custom solutions tailored to specific client needs.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Retency Privacy Engine: SaaS software for cross-analysis of previously anonymized data
• TV Impact
• Analytics
• AI Training
• Private Generative SQL

Products and services

• Retency Privacy Engine SaaS software for cross-analysis of pre-anonymized datasets using Private Set Intersection and Differential Privacy algorithms. Enables secure database joins and comparison of sensitive data without exposing individual-level data. The core platform is validated by the CNIL as compliant with European G29 anonymization criteria and is targeted at enterprises needing GDPR-compliant data collaboration.
• TV Impact TV campaign performance measurement solution that deterministically links verified TV exposure data (from telecom operators and BVOD platforms such as Orange Advertising, SFR, Bouygues, TF1 Pub, M6 Unlimited, CANAL+) with advertiser conversion data (CRM or retailer data) to calculate uplift, ROI, and incremental sales attributable to TV advertising. Serves brand advertisers and broadcasters seeking CNIL-compliant measurement.
• Analytics Foot traffic analysis solution for indoor and outdoor physical locations, measuring audience flows in venues such as shopping centers and transport hubs using anonymized geo-localization data. Targets transport operators and DOOH advertising operators needing CNIL-compliant audience measurement.
• AI Training AI model training service that uses differentially private datasets generated by the Retency Privacy Engine, enabling organizations to train machine learning models (Logistic Regression, XGBoost, Random Forests) with near-identical accuracy to raw data while preventing individual re-identification. Targets data science teams needing privacy-safe AI development.
• Private Generative SQL Natural language interface to anonymized structured databases, allowing business partners to query data using conversational text. Converts natural language inputs into SQL queries executed against privacy-protected datasets powered by the Retency Privacy Engine. Targets organizations needing privacy-safe data sharing with partners.
• Solution sur-mesure (Custom Solutions) Bespoke data solutions built to address specific client business needs, leveraging Retency's anonymization technology stack (Private Set Intersection, Differential Privacy) and adapted to particular operational or business requirements. Targets enterprises with specialized use cases not addressed by off-the-shelf products.

Quantifiable outcome

• +20% conversion increase with geographic targeting
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers11 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability5 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Six partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Orange AdvertisingcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerStrategic partnership for TV effectiveness measurement. Orange Advertising provides TV exposure data and co-markets the solution to brands seeking measurement and transparency across media channels. Results provide insights for advertisers to optimize media strategies.
• SFRcoreTechnology or IntegrationSFR provides TV exposure data for Retency TV Impact measurement solution. Partnership enables coverage of SFR subscriber viewing data for campaign effectiveness analysis.
• Bouygues TelecomcoreTechnology or IntegrationBouygues Telecom provides TV exposure data for Retency TV Impact measurement solution. Partnership extends audience coverage for campaign measurement.
• CANAL+coreTechnology or IntegrationCANAL+ provides BVOD (Broadcast Video on Demand) exposure data for TV Impact measurement. Partnership covers CANAL+ and CANALSAT subscriber viewing for comprehensive campaign analysis.
• TF1coreTechnology or IntegrationTF1 provides TV exposure data through TF1 Pub for Retency measurement solutions. Enables integration of TF1 channel viewing data in campaign effectiveness analysis.
• M6 UnlimitedcoreTechnology or IntegrationM6 Unlimited provides BVOD exposure data for Retency TV Impact measurement. Partnership covers M6 group digital viewing for comprehensive campaign coverage.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Duality Technologies: Offers homomorphic encryption and secure data collaboration for regulated enterprises. Comparable as a privacy-tech vendor enabling cross-organization analytics without exposing raw data, though focused more on homomorphic encryption than differential privacy.
• Realytics: French TV-to-digital ad measurement company that bridges linear TV exposure with digital outcomes. Directly comparable on the TV measurement / TV Impact use case, also operating in the French advertiser market with a deterministic attribution approach.
• TripleBlind: US-based privacy-enhancing technology company using cryptographic and statistical methods (including private set intersection and federated learning) to enable secure data collaboration. Closest direct competitor in the privacy-preserving computation space targeted at enterprises.
• Enveil: Provides privacy-preserving secure search and analytics using homomorphic encryption and secure enclaves. Directly comparable technology positioning — enabling enterprises to compute on encrypted/sensitive data — and serves overlapping financial services and regulated-industry buyers.
• Statice / Anonos: Provider of synthetic data and privacy-preserving data sharing technology. Comparable as a privacy-tech vendor enabling analytics on protected data, with overlapping AI-training and data-monetization use cases against Retency's Privacy Engine and AI Training.

Broad incumbents

• LiveRamp: Large-scale data collaboration platform enabling safe data activation across advertisers, publishers, and partners. Comparable in the data collaboration use case Retency serves, but operating at significantly larger scale and global footprint rather than France-focused.
• BigID: Larger data intelligence and privacy management platform covering data discovery, classification, consent, and DSAR. Overlaps with Retency on the privacy/governance buyer and competes for the same enterprise privacy-tech budget, though its core is data catalog rather than anonymized computation.
• Privitar (Informatica): Enterprise data privacy platform acquired by Informatica, offering de-identification and policy-based data sharing. Comparable in providing privacy-preserving data provisioning to large enterprises, now backed by a much larger data-management vendor.
• OneTrust: Broad incumbent in the privacy management space (consent, DSAR, RoPA, GRC). Competes for the same enterprise privacy-tech wallet and has substantially greater scale and global reach, though its focus is compliance management rather than privacy-preserving computation.

Emerging players

• Skyflow: Data privacy vault built on polymorphic encryption that lets enterprises use sensitive data (including for AI training) without exposing it. Comparable on AI-training privacy use case and emerging overlap with Retency's Privacy Engine and AI Training products.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors1 record

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Retency