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Förderung

4. October 2023 | Funding, StartUpSecure

Startup Identeco gets StartUpSecure funding of 770,000 euros

As part of the “StartUpSecure” initiative, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research has been funding the Bonn-based company for one year since June 2023. Identeco was founded in 2020 by Dr. Matthias Wübbeling and Prof. Dr. Michael Meier. The startup protects companies and accounts of customers and employees in the B2B sector from account takeovers.

The two founders know each other through their work at the University of Bonn and conducted research together between 2017 and 2020 on a BMBF project, whereby their subjects first encouraged the results to be made available as a service. Matthias Wübbeling did his PhD at the University of Bonn and Michael Meier holds the Chair of IT Security at the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Bonn and is head of the Cyber Security Department at Fraunhofer FKIE. In an interview with Cube 5, Matthias Wübbeling answered five questions for us.


logo identeco

How do you secure more than 100 million accounts from being taken over by criminals?

Actually, we help our clients to protect their accounts. These are usually accounts on online platforms such as social media, shops or layalty programmes. We search the depths of the internet for users’ login data. These are exchanged and traded there and then misused by criminals for attacks. After analysis by our systems, our customers can then effectively prevent abuse within their own infrastructure and thus provide a secure platform for consumers. This ensures trust in the platform and strengthens the loyalty of our customers.

What differences did you notice from science to business?

Companies often have different requirements for services for a demonstrator or a proof-of-principle in research. We had to completely redevelop the entire framework – our analysis pipeline, the backend software and the appliance – for our buyers in order to meet the high security requirements of our clientele.

What have been your biggest challenges so far?

We are all computer scientists. This means that we know our solution very well and do good work, but selling it to international companies and corporations is a very different business. Here we had to learn two things in particular: “Companies don’t always buy the best product on the market” and “We don’t have to sell a product by our performance alone, but also by our company name”. Today, Identeco itself is a good brand in the IT security market. A good three years after our founding, we have many regular customers, some of whom have been with us since the beginning and continue to renew our services and book additional services.

In which area of your business will the funding be particularly helpful?

The funding flows primarily into development. As providers in the IT security sector, we must have a secure software environment ourselves. We need performant infrastructures – after all, we have more than 30 billion entries in our database, which is searched several hundred times a day – and we have to invest in education and documentation for our customers and consumers. In addition, we are still looking for more test subjects for our products. Since leaked login data poses a massive threat to all industries and sectors, but different requirements exist in each industry, we still have many requirements to collect and implement so that we can soon protect all accounts in companies and on platforms.

How can Cube 5 continue to support you in the future?

Cube 5 supported us very well from the very beginning. From the first sketch of request to the final application. Many thanks at this point. And it doesn’t stop after the application. Through Cube 5, we are part of the SpeedUpSecure Accelerator, where we receive a lot of valuable input for our business development. In addition, we were recently guests at the Cube 5 stand at Digital Demo Day in Düsseldorf for the second time and are always in contact with potential customers via the Cube 5 network.


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Federal Ministry of Education and Research (in German): StartUpSecure  
Startup: https://identeco.de/

14. June 2023 | Funding, StartUpSecure

Startup Radix Security secures StartUpSecure funding

The Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (Federal Ministry of Education and Research) is funding the Bochum-based IT security startup with a volume of 517,000 euros for one year.

With their technology, the Radix Security team aims to establish common security standards in 5G mobile networks and provide tools that enable in-depth and automated security evaluation of network components.
 
Radix Security was founded by Katharina Kohls and David Rupprecht: Rupprecht received his doctorate in 2020 at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. His doctoral thesis focused on securing 4G and 5G networks. During his research he found several implementation and specification vulnerabilities in current mobile networks. Katharina Kohls is a professor in the Digital Security Group at Radboud Universiteit in Nijmegen (NL) and was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Ruhr University Bochum. Her research focuses on the security of distributed infrastructures such as mobile networks or anonymity systems.
 
With Cube 5, the two have a long history.They are familiar with the large network of founders at the Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security and participated in the five-month incubator program inCUBE in 2022. Most recently, founder Dr. David Rupprecht spoke extensively in RUB News about 5G and its special applications.

Funding in two phases 
In two funding phases, the BMBF supports from the idea to the foundation of a company. In the first phase, the development phase, teams work out how the idea can be technically implemented. In Phase 2 it is important as a newly founded company to concretize the business model and business concept.

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BMBF Homepage for StartUpSecure  
Project information: https://www.forschung-it-sicherheit-kommunikationssysteme.de/projekte/gprotect
Company website: https://radix-security.com/
 
Founders of Edgeless Compute

26. July 2019 | Uncategorized

Project for secure data processing platform started at Ruhr University Bochum

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research supports startups in the field of cybersecurity with grants of up to 800,000 euros per year.

A new startup-project to develop an innovative platform for high-security data processing started in June 2019 at the Ruhr University Bochum. As part of the StartUpSecure initiative, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding ‘Edgeless Compute’ with almost half a million euros for an initial year.

Safe Cloud-Computing
The founder team is conducting research in the field of secure and efficient data processing in the age of cloud-computing. It is their aim to develop a highly trustworthy data processing platform. Later on the technology will serve many industries as it gives access to data that is hardly obtainable today. Edgeless Compute enables German and international industry leaders to process data securely while guaranteeing the highest level of privacy to the source of said data.

Edgeless Cube5

Funding within two phases
The BMBF supports research teams in the field of it security from the idea stage to the legal foundation of their own company. It does so in two phases. First of all, the so called development phase, allows research teams to work out how research results can be transformed into marketable products or services. Edgeless Compute is the second project funded in phase 1 at Ruhr University Bochum. Earlier on the university spinoff ‘emproof’ was able to position itself on the market on the basis of their project results; in July 2019 it has been rewarded with a second grant in phase 2. It is called the founding phase. According to the BMBF, creative marketing and sales strategies are necessary for a successful company launch.

Clicked:
Homepage StartUpSecure of the Ministry of Education and Research
Project information Edgeless Compute
Project information emproof

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