Secfense Investors
Secfense, the cybersecurity start-up from Poland has recently raised 2m $ from Tera VC, Presto Ventures, and RKKVC. The company has entered the US market and prepares new products.
Secfense has been present in the cybersecurity market for over three years and operates so dynamically that in the recent financing round it was offered three times more capital than the founders, Tomasz Kowalski and Marcin Szary, were raising. It continues its development in Poland and takes its first steps in foreign markets – the US and the UK. In the United States, Secfense founders have registered a company and launched a representative office. The company is currently working on expanding the sales team in Poland and the UK. It is also preparing the launch of a new solution.
Cybersecurity for enterprises and large organizations
One of the company’s latest accomplishments was the implementation of its core solution called User Access Security Broker (UASB) in a large public organization that maintains and develops the largest state IT systems in Poland (the name of the client has not been made public). Secfense broker is a technology focused on simplifying the method of implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) in organizations. Thanks to UASB, MFA can be added to a large number of applications without interfering with their code. UASB also makes it possible to work in the so-called passwordless model (where end users authenticate with factors other than a password). Secfense broker protects organizations against the effects of phishing, credential theft, attacks on logged-in user sessions, man-in-the-middle attacks, etc.
Secfense’s clients are mostly large organizations and corporations. So far, around ten large companies have used the Secfense solution, including PKP Intercity, BNP Paribas, one of the state-owned companies, and insurance companies (due to the cyber protection policy, not all companies want to make their cybersecurity providers public). – We tested our solution on the Polish market, and it proved its effectiveness and won the first customers. We are talking about corporations in which decision-making and implementation processes take a long time. Now we have to do exactly the same in foreign markets. We want to prove that our product is trustworthy. Competition in the cybersecurity market is fierce – emphasizes Tomasz Kowalski, the CEO, and co-founder of Secfense. The start-up is already getting ready to launch another product. Later this year, a mobile application is planned to be launched on the market, which will make it possible to use a smartphone as an authenticator offering the same level of security as cryptographic keys (U2F). Company officials say they are working on ‘cryptography for the masses.’ They do not reveal the details of the project yet.
Cybersecurity – one of the hottest industries today
Tomasz Kowalski emphasizes that cybersecurity is one of the hottest industries today. We could observe a large increase in the demand for digital security after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting transfer of many stationary activities to the Internet. – The interest in investment funds and business angels in financing start-ups that create this type of tools has also increased. We had no problem closing the $ 2 million round, on the contrary – we had a financial surplus. We did not want to accept a larger pool of capital because it would mean too much dilution of the shares. It would not be beneficial for the company at the present stage of development – explains Tomasz Kowalski.
The company just recently received 2m $ from Tera VC, Presto Ventures, and RKKVC and at an earlier stage of development, it received over 700k $ from early investor Bitspiration Booster VC. Tomasz Kowalski announced that in the near future Secfense will greatly expand the team. The founders are planning to hire, among others IT developers and software testers, and strengthen the operational team.
Investor’s Viewpoint
Secfense created a new technology that solves the cybersecurity problems of large organizations. The solution is precise and easy to implement, even for corporate banks where cybersecurity standards are already high. It is also worth paying attention to the founding team – Tomasz Kowalski and Marcin Szary. They are ambitious leaders experienced in their fields with a clear plan for international business expansion. Bearing in mind all these elements, we decided to invest in the company together with other co-investors from the CEE region. Despite the fact that we have invested in Secfense just recently, we have already started a close cooperation with the founders and we support the company with our contacts and try to help in strategic decisions.
Mateusz Bodio, Managing Director of the RKKVC about Secfense
