SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Guardtime, the creator of keyless signature technology (KSI) for validating the integrity and authenticity of digital data, today announced a strategic partnership with New Context Services, a Neo Innovations Company. Under the agreement, San Francisco-based New Context Services (New Context) will be leading Guardtime’s commercial global initiative for training and certification as well as verification and qualification of new products and applications integrating KSI.

“The decision to select Neo Innovations as our strategic product development partner was very clear”

“Guardtime’s technology is a crucial and critical step for the future of data security,” says Joi Ito, co-founder of Digital Garage. “Both an individual’s privacy and international data protection are going to be reliant on commercial organizations staying vigilant in the protection and assurance of all data.”

The alliance will focus on Big Data, the industrial Internet and product innovation teaming Neo Innovations, New Context, and Guardtime with those industries looking for product innovation, enterprise scale and data assurance.

“The decision to select Neo Innovations as our strategic product development partner was very clear,” said James Blom, President of Guardtime US. “Neo is a global innovation leader in building disruptive cloud based products and with New Context they now have the systems integration and data security expertise that will enable Guardtime to deliver hybrid cloud solutions which have integrated authentication, attribution and integrity for secure logging and cloud orchestration.”

James added, “The alliance is focused on combining Neo, NCS’s & Guardtime expertise to design, build, make and operate information and software assurance data services for firms in aerospace, automotive, insurance, financial services and healthcare. Guardtime knows its crucial to align with companies that build innovative products and services that are orchestrated for cloud platforms; Leveraging architectures which require systems integration teams that deliver business process and engineering systems outsourcing from Singapore to San Francisco to New York to Edinburgh.”

“Security, data assurance, systems architecture, software engineering, UX, UI and product development need to be thought of as one ecosystem as opposed to individual silo’s that do not communicate with each other. It’s our responsibility as community of practitioners that we understand you can not build anything of scale without approaching it from a holistic viewpoint. Lean and Agile methodologies need to bring everyone to the table, and we all must iterate together to build robust products,” said Daniel Riedel, CEO of Neo Innovations. “We created New Context Services as a new division focused on providing world class systems automation, security architecture and Information assurance. As we did with Neo Innovations we have brought together the best minds in the industry to lead this effort.”

Daniel added, “We will be pairing Neo’s great work around products with NCS’s systems architecture and security expertise with Guardtime’s technology in analytics-heavy industries such as M2M (machine to machine), automotive, telematics, the connected and autonomous car, as well as products and services that work with that data.”

“We look forward to the opportunities that New Context Services empowered with such technologies such as Guardtime can bring to the DG Portfolio. This alliance will help bolster the foundation of Innovation that Digital Garage is known for,” commented Kaoru Hayashi, Group CEO of Digital Garage.

"Establishing this alliance is another step in our vision to transform society to one where electronic data is more reliable than physical and where all data comes with irrefutable proof of integrity and authenticity," said Mike Gault, CEO of Guardtime. “We are increasingly seeing the need for building modern and innovative solutions around our technology, as we see change in design such as the integration with a connected car where data assurance is no longer a feature of a product but instead is becoming a requirement.”

Contact Information:

Press and Information for Neo Innovations: press@neo.com

Press and Information for New Context: press@newcontext.com

About Neo Innovation

Headquartered in San Francisco, Neo Innovation, Inc. (www.neo.com) is a global product innovation company with offices in North and South America, Asia and Europe. Rooted in the belief that ‘building the right thing’ requires bringing together the best in business, technology and design, Neo takes an iterative, collaborative, evidence-based approach to product design and creation. Our global teams are composed of world-class engineers, designers and product managers. Neo’s clients cover the spectrum from startups to large enterprises and governments and include world-recognized organizations like Time, American Express, PayPal, Sunlight Foundation, GE, AT&T, ICANN and Turnstone.

About New Context Services

New Context Services, Inc., a Neo Innovation company, is focused on providing world class Systems Automation, Operations, Security Architecture and Information Assurance. A team of world class experts in security and operations is working with our partners to create a new level in data trust.

About Guardtime

Guardtime brings transparency and accountability to digital society. Founded in 2007, Guardtime invented Keyless Signature Infrastructure (KSI) - a technology that allows any type of electronic activity to be independently verified using only formal mathematical methods, without the need for trusted administrators. Deployed by world governments, KSI provides an independent audit trail for everything that happens in digital society, limiting liability and making it impossible for insiders or sophisticated cyber attackers to manipulate data and cover their tracks. Implementing Guardtime KSI technology ensures reliable communications, travel, shopping, banking, and identity and privacy protection.

About Digital Garage

Tokyo-based Digital Garage (JASDAQ: 4819) focuses mainly on 3 business domains: Incubation of Internet Startups, Marketing business and Online Payment Platform business. Since its inception in 1995, the company has pioneered various domains of Internet businesses in Japan, including portals, media representation, e-commerce, mobile communication and blogging. An investor in Twitter and Path, Digital Garage has created partnerships to customize the Japanese versions of Twitter and LinkedIn.