Web 4.0, the next big leap in the tech world, which aims to connect and process data automatically and could replace Zoom calls with metaverse meetings, could also bring a new series of risks – cyber risks. Worldwide, developers are responsible for building tech products and helping digitize traditional systems but they aren’t necessarily in charge of making them secure as well.
Here is where software companies that offer cybersecurity solutions, following the cyber-steps of the likes of Romanian Bitdefender, come into the picture. This is also what ignited our mapping of top cybersecurity startups in SEE. We aim to showcase young startups, as well as some in a later stage of development.
This is only the beginning of mapping the regional ecosystem, so feel free to send us an email with other cybersecurity startups to add to the list – [email protected].
Evolution and trends driving the cybersecurity market
The global cybersecurity market value size is growing from over €130B, which is expected this year, to over €300B by 2026. Growth factors include the rise of cyber attacks, especially in the health and governmental verticals; the rapid development of the work-from-home trend; cloud and data center vulnerability, and more people utilizing the internet each year.
Cybersecurity or computer security means protecting everything connected to computer systems and networks from any type of breach that can damage data or even misdirect it. Several trends are influencing the rise of the cybersecurity sector, including:
- The implementation of ethical AI to detect, prevent, and counter cyberattacks as humans cannot have the ability to assess the information at such a high speed.
- Kubernetes security, which might witness a break this year. The open-source platform was launched by Google seven years ago and it automates processes in the management of containerized applications.
- The rise of crypto also sees the crypto security space blooming to counter attacks and scams.
*Top cybersecurity startups in Romania*
Name: CODA Intelligence
Founders: Bogdan Calapod, Cristian Sandescu, Mihnea Calin, Octavian Grigorescu
Solution: Their solution offers an AI-driven, cloud-agnostic vulnerability management platform that makes cybersecurity affordable for SMEs and their customers. IT assets are assessed for new or existing threats and the system matures over time.
Launch/funding: 2016 – €800K
Name: CyberEDU
Founders: Florina Dumitrache, Andrei Avadanei
Solution: They offer a platform that can bridge theory and practice. The team’s mission is to improve cybersecurity skills worldwide by supporting professionals, companies, and universities to learn cybersecurity solutions using real-life scenarios.
Launch/funding: 2020 – N/A
Name: CyberSwarm
Founder: Raneti Mihai
Solution: Their full cybersecurity solution offers both hardware and customized software for IoT, which along with the AI component it becomes a thinking cybersecurity device. It develops Memristor technology for AI and cybersecurity applications that defend themselves against cyber attacks.
Launch/funding: 2017 – N/A
Name: Cybourn
Founders: Ashwin Jayaram, Daniel McKee, Ioan Istrate (Romanian)
Solution: Their solution offers monitoring services, threat detection, risk assessment, and incident response. They use ML and automation orchestration to detect cyberattacks.
Launch/funding: 2018 – N/A
Name: Cyscale
Founders: Andrei Milas, Manuela Ticudean, Ovidiu Cical
Solution: Their solution, which is a cloud management, security, and compliance tool, is to make sure any cloud product is secure through automated processes.
Launch/funding: 2019 – €550K
Name: Enersec Technology
Founders: Bogdan Matache, Razvan Codreanu
Solution: The team offers a security operation center as a service for IoT consumers. Their services cover planning, assessing, and operating to secure businesses.
Launch/funding: 2013 – N/A
Name: Modex
Founders: Alin Iftemi, Dragos Rautu, Mihai Ivascu
Solution: Their solution is developing cybersecurity products with the help of blockchain technology. Their goal is to help businesses protect their digital data without prior knowledge of this niche technology.
Launch/funding: 2017/ N/A
Name: OutThink
Founder: Flavius Plesu
Solution: Their solution is a cybersecurity human risk management platform. The SaaS platform helps identify, measure human risk, and encourage behavior change by combining human intelligence with data that reveals risk patterns.
Launch/funding: 2019 – €3.5M
Name: Siscale AI
Founder: Petrica Ruta
Solution: Their solution, the Arcanna AI, aids cybersecurity professionals to scale their operations. The system learns continuously to help teams deal with threats and automate tasks.
Launch/funding: 2015 – €700K
Name: TypingDNA
Founders: Adrian Gheara, Cristian Tamas, Raul Popa
Solution: Their solution offers typing biometrics authentication as a service, which allows companies to recognize people by their typing. Their tool protects accounts and comes with a flexible API and low-code integration.
Launch/funding: 2016/€8.4M
*Top cybersecurity startups in Bulgaria*
Name: Claroty
Founders: Amir Zilberstein, Benny Porat, Galina Antova (Bulgarian)
Solution: Their industrial cybersecurity solution protects OT (industrial), IoT (enterprise), and IoMT (healthcare) assets from attacks through secure remote access.
Launch/funding: 2015 – €590M
Name: LogSentinel
Founders: Bozhidar Bozhanov, Anton Gerunov, Kalina Konstantinova*
*The founders stepped down and the company is now led by Asen Kehayov.
Solution: Their solution aims to bridge all the different security tools which are available on the market into one system. The goal is to simplify processes with the help of blockchain and ML targeting SMEs.
Launch/funding: 2017 – €1M
Name: DeepCode (acquired by Snyk)
Founders: Boris Paskalev, Martin Vechev, Veselin Raychev
Solution: DeepCode solution presents an AI system that can learn from different programs and offer code security and reliability issues. While Snyk offers developers a security platform that can easily integrate with a professional workflow.
Launch/funding: 2016 – €4.7M
*Top cybersecurity startups in Greece*
Name: Hack the Box
Founders: Aris Zikopoulos, Haris Pylarinos, James Hooker
Solution: Their solution provides cybersecurity training through a fun platform. Users can test their skills with other community members and machines, simulating real-world scenarios.
Launch/funding: 2017 – €13M
*Top cybersecurity startups in Croatia*
Name: ReversingLabs
Founders: Mario Vuksan, Tomislav Pericin
Solution: Their solution specializes in threat detection solutions in the software supply chain. Developers and enterprise users can prevent attacks automatically.
Launch/funding: 2009 – €74M
