PKWARE

Established enterprise data security vendor with legacy strength in encryption and compression, expanding into modern data discovery and classification through organic development and acquisition.

PKWARE is a Milwaukee-based data security company with roots dating back to the creation of the ZIP file format in the 1980s. The company has evolved from its origins in data compression into a comprehensive enterprise data security platform, offering solutions for data discovery, classification, masking, and encryption. PKWARE's flagship product, Smartcrypt, enables organizations to automatically discover and protect sensitive data across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, helping enterprises meet regulatory compliance requirements such as GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and PCI DSS. In November 2020, PKWARE acquired Dataguise, a data discovery and protection company, significantly expanding its capabilities in sensitive data discovery and masking, particularly for big data environments including Hadoop and cloud data lakes. This acquisition strengthened PKWARE's position as a full-lifecycle data security vendor capable of addressing both structured and unstructured data at scale across complex enterprise environments. While PKWARE is not a core AdTech company, it is relevant to the broader data and privacy ecosystem that underpins digital advertising. As data privacy regulations tighten globally, PKWARE's tools are used by enterprises — including those in media, retail, and financial services — to manage sensitive consumer data, enforce data governance policies, and reduce risk associated with large-scale data processing. The company serves mid-market and enterprise customers across healthcare, financial services, government, and technology sectors.