Antwerp-based cybersecurity company XFA, announced on Thursday the closing of its €1.5 million Seed round to scale its platform and build a safety net for the modern, hybrid, and AI-native workplace.
This round was led by ScaleFund (Belgium) and Curiosity (the Netherlands), with participation from previous investors PMV, Seeder Fund, as well as experienced entrepreneurs from within and outside the tech sector, grouped under Investee.
This investment will allow XFA to expand beyond its current platform as well as harness the latest advances in cryptography and AI.
“Throughout our careers, we saw the same problem everywhere: IT teams invest heavily in forcing control over devices, yet the majority of devices remain unmanaged and vulnerable,” said Lars Veelaert, CEO and co-founder of XFA.
“Our technology discovers every device, guides users to make required security updates, and verifies security without requiring management or prior knowledge of the device,” added Gijs Van Laer, CTO and co-founder of XFA.
XFA was founded in 2023 by Lars Veelaert, a former cybersecurity advisor, and Gijs Van Laer, who holds a PhD in cryptography from Johns Hopkins University.
The company has a technology that verifies the security of any device at login without invasive management software or prior knowledge of the device. It states, “Traditional device security relies on invasive management software (MDM), a model increasingly incompatible with today’s flexible work environments. Research shows that the average work device is 350 days out of date on security updates, and current approaches only cover about 40% of devices. The remaining 60% – often personal devices, BYOD, freelance hardware, and other unmanaged tech – remain unaccounted for due to privacy concerns and logistical complexity.”
XFA claims to have closed this gap with a privacy-first technology that detects every device used for work and verifies its security instantly at the moment of login.
The company’s solution can be deployed organisation-wide with a single 15-minute setup, enabling businesses to achieve complete device security coverage in a few weeks.
“Security is undergoing a fundamental shift. With remote work, the rise of bring-your-own devices (BYOD), and flexible talent becoming the norm, companies can no longer rely on traditional ways of keeping devices safe. What’s needed is a simple, reliable way to know whether a device can be trusted the moment it connects. We invested in XFA because the founders understand this change better than anyone and bring the drive and expertise to build the next generation of cybersecurity at scale,” said Lisa Brouwer, Principal at Curiosity.
XFA partners with automated compliance platforms like Vanta to streamline device security evidence for certifications such as ISO 27001, SOC 2 and NIS2. It has customers across Europe, North America, and Asia.
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2025/12/antwerp-based-xfa-raises-e1-5-million-to-tackle-a-critical-blind-spot-in-modern-workplace-cybersecurity/
