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Microsoft is acquiring a startup that will help its cloud customers control how their data is being used

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Sean Gallup/Getty Images
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On Monday, Microsoft announced the acquisition the data privacy and governance startup BlueTalon. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

BlueTalon provides solutions that helps business understand, manage, and control the collection of data, who has access to such information, and how it's being used. Under Microsoft, BlueTalon will build data privacy and governance solutions for Microsoft's cloud Azure

BlueTalon had raised $25.87 million and was backed by firms including Biosys Capital, Signia Venture Partners, Maverick Capital, and Divergent Ventures. 

"The IP and talent acquired through BlueTalon brings a unique expertise at the apex of big data, security and governance," Rohan Kumar, corporate vice president of Azure Data at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post. "This acquisition will enhance our ability to empower enterprises across industries to digitally transform while ensuring right use of data with centralized data governance at scale through Azure."

BlueTalon builds solutions for private data centers, but CEO Eric Tilenius said in a blog post that more customers started asking the company to build solutions for the cloud. This could also align with Microsoft's hybrid cloud strategy — the technology for allowing customers to run their data and applications both in private data centers and in the cloud. 

Read more: The head of Microsoft's data cloud business says that its tech 'battle hardened' and ready to face Google and Amazon on his home turf

"As we began exploring partnership opportunities with various hyperscale cloud providers to better serve our customers, Microsoft deeply impressed us," Tilenius wrote in the blog post. "The Azure Data team was uniquely thoughtful and visionary when it came to data governance. We found them to be the perfect fit for us in both mission and culture."

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Rosalie Chan
Rosalie Chan is a senior editor for Business Insider's tech team. Previously, she covered cloud computing and enterprise tech, reporting on companies like Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Intel, Alibaba Cloud, Atlassian, GitHub, VMware, Broadcom, and more. She has written extensively on topics including cloud computing, developer companies, open source, and sexism and sexual harassment in the tech industry. She has received the San Francisco Press Club award for continuing coverage for her reporting on sexism and sexual harassment in Silicon Slopes and the Excellence in Business / Consumer / Tech Reporting award from the Asian American Journalists Association for her investigation into the coding boot camp Holberton School. Most recently, she was an editor on the Business Insider investigative package, The True Cost of Data Centers, which received a George Polk Award and an honorable mention from SABEW.Rosalie joined Business Insider after working as a software engineer and freelance journalist. She studied journalism, computer science, and technology and business law at Northwestern University. Her work has previously appeared in TIME, the Huffington Post, VICE, Pacific Standard, Inverse, Chicago magazine, the Chicago Reporter, and more. She's based in San Francisco.