Opaque develops a confidential computing platform (originating from the open-source MC2 project) that runs analytics and machine learning directly on encrypted data without decrypting it and without exposing unencrypted data to anyone, not even Opaque. The technology is intended to unlock value in confidential data held in silos—enabling regulated industries to collaborate while preserving privacy. The company cites use cases such as banks jointly fighting financial crime and healthcare institutions collaborating on studies and model training. The product effort grew out of five years of research at UC Berkeley's RISE Lab and benefited from early access to Intel SGX hardware enclaves. Founders include Ion Stoica, Raluca Ada Popa (President), Wenting Zheng, Dr. Rishabh Poddar (CEO) and Chester Leung. Opaque has raised $31.5 million in financing to date, including a $22 million Series A on June 28, 2022. Opaque raised a $9.5 million seed round to build a solution that enables secure access to sensitive data in the cloud without exposing that data to cloud providers or other participants. The company was spun out of UC Berkeley’s RISELab by professors Raluca Ada Popa and Ion Stoica. Its core product layers secure hardware enclaves with cryptographic fortification on top of state-of-the-art cloud security so data is only decrypted inside processor enclaves. Opaque aims to let customers perform tasks such as building machine‑learning models on sensitive data while preserving confidentiality. The startup positions the technology to enable inter-organizational collaborations — for example, hospitals collaborating on cancer research or banks detecting money‑laundering — without sharing raw data. Lead investor Intel Capital said it had been working with the founders since the company’s earliest days and highlighted confidential computing’s role in unlocking data value across silos.

Total raised

$32M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Sep 2022