Preventive cybersecurity measures will become the new normal for companies around the globe over the following years. That’s why we are excited to lead the 4M CHF seed round for Saporo and their firm conviction that IT security can be significantly improved beyond the small circle of cybersecurity experts.
Saporo was founded by the two brothers Olivier and Guillaume Eyries and cybersecurity researcher Éric Blavier, Ph.D. Their product enables organizations to model, measure, and increase their resistance to cyberattacks.
The system uses graph theory and AI to anticipate how a hacker would attack a company and analyses the relationships between assets, users, and computers against millions of possible attack paths. In the end, Saporo gives its customers a clear list of recommendations to anticipate and better resist these attacks.
Their approach is so effective that customers have shown an attack surface reduction of up to 80 percent within three months. The teams’ next chapter: helping hundreds of companies protect their business from an ever-increasing flood of cyberattacks.
Cyberattacks, and the costs for businesses, have been increasing sharply for many years. Global attacks increased by 28% in the third quarter of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021. The average weekly attacks per organization worldwide reached over 1,130. 95% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error.
It’s no wonder that Saporo saw its customer base triple in less than a year. The start-up now serves companies with teams between 500 and 30,000 employees in healthcare, banking and insurance.
One of the biggest challenges in cybersecurity is the scaling of effective solutions. When Olivier, Guillaume, and Éric ran their first proof-of-concept, it took them 30 hours to run their program for an organization with a dozen employees. They can now do the same in 3 minutes, and their program can handle tens of thousands of employees per customer.
Within less than a year, the team built a scaling solution that is now helping companies with 30,000 employees to protect their most valuable assets. So, we are excited to work with the team to bring their system to hundreds of new companies across Europe over the next years and help them grow to become one of the leading European players in cybersecurity.
