Wednesday 16 December 2015

Startups from Europe, Israel and South Africa selected for Cyber London accelerator programme

Cyber security startup accelerator and incubator Cyber London (CyLon) has announced the participants in its second programme to support cyber security startups. The 14-week programme gives entrepreneurial teams access to professional training and guidance from a network of mentors and investors. The companies also receive a £15,000 investment in return for 3% equity. CyLon partners and sponsors are Amadeus Capital Partners, Epsilon Advisory Partners, Winton Capital, BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP and Fried Frank.
The startups taking part in the second programme are:
Aves Netsec, Finland
BitNinja, Hungary.
Fabric, UK..
Mazor, Israel.
Simudyne, UK. - with a focus on decision support systems
Torsion InfoSec, UK.
UkkoBox, UK and Brazil.
Verity, South Africa.

Thursday 12 November 2015

UK startup Panaseer raises $2.25 million to bring cyber security intelligence to the board

UK cyber security software company Panaseer has raised $2.25 million through a syndicated seed investment round. Panaseer was founded in 2014 by a team of cyber security experts from BAE Systems. Interestingly, its aim is to bring cyber security intelligence to the board, not just the security teams. It addresses the question: “How secure are we?”, the question that should be on every board member’s lips but is very difficult for anyone to answer. If they can really do that, using their big data and visualisation platform, and make the insight relevant to senior level decision makers, then they will certainly succeed. Panaseer was selected to accompany the Prime Minister to Washington DC earlier this year as part of a cyber-security delegation and has since gone on to sign its first New York based Financial Services client.
 
For further cyber security deals and innovations see Security TechWatch.

Tuesday 10 November 2015

UK government and industry launch £6.5m CyberInvest scheme to fund research into cyber security

The UK government, in collaboration with industry, has launched a scheme called 'CyberInvest' to fund research into cyber security. To date, 18 companies have signed up to the scheme and have committed £6.5m over the next five years. This includes BT, which is investing £500,000 into the scheme. Other companies that have made their involvement public include Northrop Grumman, Crossword Cybersecurity, Nexor and Becrypt.

Microsoft Goes For Another Israeli Cyber Security Firm - Secure Islands

Israel has a thriving security startup industry, and Microsoft just announced an agreement to buy Secure Islands, its third Israeli security firm in a year.
The acquisition follows Microsoft’s purchase of hybrid cloud security startup Aorato for $200M last year and Adallom for around $300 million in September.

Saturday 31 October 2015

October's Cyber Security Deals

Sunday 4 October 2015

18 Cyber Security Deals in September

Cisco Expands Security Services Portfolio with Portcullis Acquisition
Portcullis is a UK-based security consultancy that offers services for testing and security response and research. 

New Directions in Cyber Security - EIT conference in Berlin

Some interesting early stage cyber security companies under the wing of the Privacy, Security and Trust Action line in EIT Digital:

qkey - mobile authentication
https://www.qkeysecurity.com/index.html
GuardSquare - application protection
http://www.guardsquare.com

Tuesday 8 September 2015

Another UK Cyber Security Company Raises Funding

According to Computer Business Review UK-based CensorNet has landed £2m from a Series A funding round, with the raised funds earmarked for channel growth & bolstering R&D. This follows yesterday's announcement from PixelPin reported here.

Monday 7 September 2015

Hot-off-the-Press - BT Infinity Labs partner PixelPin announces funding for Picture-based Passwords

PixelPin have announced a significant fund raise from angel investors. They are hosted at BT Infinity Labs and are also working in the EIT Digital Trusted Cloud project with BT, the Digital Catapult and other partners across Europe. Chuffed co-founder Geoff Anderson told me "the funding, and new board members, allows us a transformation, from an early stage startup towards a real growth phase".

Friday 31 July 2015

Market and Industry Trends in Cyber Security - EIT Digital event

 

Privacy Security & Trust
EIT Digital Business Community Event

 
A full day dedicated to market & industry trends
  • Industry & Policy Makers Keynotes and Panels
  • Startup Pitches 
  • Technology Demands & Offers Workshops
  • Business Networking & Matchmaking with Industry Professionals

EIT Digital Co-Location Centre, Berlin
Ernst Reuter Platz 7, 6th Floor
Berlin 10587
 
 
 

Thursday 30 July 2015

Invest in Cyber - the first European investment conference focused exclusively on cyber security - October 14-15

Invest-in-cyber is the only European partnering convention focused exclusively on leading investments in cybersecurity. INRIA Rennes are hosts, jointly organized by Pôle d’Excellence cyber and its partners. The two-day event brings together institutional investors and venture capitalists with experts on cybersecurity, industry leaders, analysts and cybersecurity entrepreneurs. Early stage companies seeking seed funding, development and later stage financing can network with qualified panels of investors and potential partners.

Thursday 23 July 2015

Defence Tech Transfer Brings Innovative Cyber Security Assessment Tool to the Market

Great to see in Computer Weekly that a "military-grade" cyber defence capability assessment tool (CDCAT) is being made available to commercial business. Originally developed for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) by the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) it is being licensed to accreditation organisation APMG via Ploughshare Innovations (which manages the commercial licensing of technology out of DSTL). Apparently the tool and its scoring system can be used on an on-going basis to monitor cyber risk by obtaining a business licence from APMG for the .NET version or by signing up for the soon-to-be-introduced web version.

Tuesday 24 March 2015

Jerusalem Post reports Alibaba investment in Israeli cyber security fund JVP

Follows on from PayPal's recent acquisition of CyActive which counted JVP as an investor.
Alibaba makes strategic investment in Israeli venture capital fund.

And seems to endorse the message from this recent article in the MIT Technology Review:
Why Venture Capitalists Love Security Firms Right Now

Friday 6 March 2015

PayPal acquires Israeli cyber security startup CyActive

Founded as recently as 2013, and with just $2m raised to date, the deal is purported to have a value of $60m -$80m.
According to Yoav Tzruya, a partner at CyActive investor Jerusalem Venture Partners, CyActive could have helped prevent the infamous Sony attack. It analyses attacks that occurred at other companies to see if slight variants are potentially a threat, and then prevents a future attack getting through. Tzruya also suggested that the Sony attack was a variant of several other attacks, and that CyActive could have stopped it.

This is the first exit for JVP’s one-year-old cyber security lab.

Thursday 26 February 2015

DHS Licenses Malware Detection Tech to Cyber Security Company

Hyperion, a malware forensics detection and software assurance technology developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been licensed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) for market commercialization to R&K Cyber Solutions LLC, an application development and cyber solution company. Hyperion is apparently S&T's second technology that has successfully been transferred to the commercial market

Wednesday 25 February 2015

Kaspersky Labs Launches Online Accelerator For Security Startups

The Security Startup Challenge (SSC), is part accelerator, part startup competition, and also has Mangrove Capital Partners and Russian VC firm, the ABRT Fund, putting money behind it. It follows the recent launch of a cyber security accelerator in London, called CyLon.

Thursday 29 January 2015

Startup PFP finds malware intrusions by monitoring processor radio frequencies

Startup PFP is based on research from Virginia Tech funded by the Departments of Defense and  Homeland Security. They were seeking a way to identify whether software-defined radios have unauthorized software running on them. The technology that was developed has a much more general application, particularly in SCADA and other embedded systems, which are often difficult to protect using standard anti-malware tools.
The name PFP comes from power fingerprinting, which is how the founders describe what their system establishes for each device it protects.

Wednesday 28 January 2015

Europe (well London) Gets A Cyber Security Incubator

Cyber London (CyLon for short, - the scary robots from Battlestar Galactica!) will be a 12-week program, has been co-founded by Alex van Someren of VC firm Amadeus Capital Partners, who previously founded U.K. cryptography company nCipher along with Jonathan Luff and Grace Cassy, co-founders of Epsilon Advisory Partners. CyLon’s program will be managed by the Ignite accelerator.