ITUS Secure Technologies has won the National Cyber Security Centre’s (NCSC) ‘Cyber Den’ competition at CYBERUK 2023. CYBERUK is the UK’s government’s annual flagship cyber security event, which visited Belfast for the first time earlier this year.
Based on the BBC’s popular ‘Dragon’s Den’, the ‘Cyber Den’ competition sees small businesses pitch their cyber security solutions to a panel of experts, which this year included Mark Ryland, Director, Office of the CISO at AWS and Nick Godfrey, Senior Director and Global Head, Office of the CISO at Google, as well as senior staff from NCSC.
ITUS Secure Technologies won for its product, ‘CYBRISC’ - an innovative solution that supports the insurance industry through digitising cyber risk assessments for SMEs. The company will now receive a year’s worth of assistance from the NCSC which will support their ambitions of providing a secure, user-friendly cybersecurity management solution for the non-technical business owner.
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ITUS Secure Technologies was founded in 2018 and has offices in Belfast and Letterkenny and works with business in Ireland and the UK offering managed IT services, IT hardware, software, networks, and cyber security.
Clare Ryan, co-founder & CEO of ITUS Secure Technologies commented on the win saying: “We are absolutely thrilled to have been selected as a winner of the NCSC Cyber Den at CYBERUK 2023. We look forward to working with the team at NCSC to further shape and enhance our solution for the insurance industry. We are grateful to the team at Plexal and all involved in the Cyber Runway programme for supporting us on our journey this far, and wish all of the other start-up companies involved in the competition every success for the future. We’ve been lucky to get to know many of the companies over the past 12 months, following their successes and it has been a fantastic experience to pitch alongside them in the Den.”
She continues, “The theme for CYBERUK 2023 was, ‘securing an open and resilient digital future’ which alludes to the fact that all businesses need to examine how today’s actions will impact the future of the cyber security ecosystem. Now, more than ever, cyber security must be at the top of the business agenda - and we look forward to promoting the cause throughout 2023 and beyond, especially with this win behind us.”
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“Our team is really excited about the next 12 months and are looking forward to getting CYBRISC into the marketplace early in 2024”, said Paul Daly, co-founder and CTO. “We’ve been actively raising our pre-seed round following our success at the Intertrade Ireland Seedcorn competition in late 2022 and are on track to close out £500,000 in funding over the next few months. Working with the NCSC will enable us to ensure we have a secure, robust cloud-based product that will meet the needs of SMEs for managing their cybersecurity when we first launch”.
Raise Ventures have been supporting ITUS with this current fundraise. “I have really seen the company focus on identifying the opportunity to support SMEs with their security monitoring dashboard and use intel from that to educate and improve cyber policies in the insurance industry. Raise Ventures has been working with the team for more a year and are proud to be supporting CYBRISC on their journey to accelerate and raise investment. They are thought leaders and innovators in their space and winning Cyber Den is just one indication that this is a company to watch
,” comments Jenny Ervine, CEO at Raise Ventures.
Source: Written from press release
