Uniqkey, a Denmark-based cybersecurity startup, has secured €5.35 million in a funding round led by Swedish VC firm BackingMinds, with participation from industry veterans like Jesper Zerlang, Lars Ankjer, Otto Krabbe, Rolf Bladt, and several prominent angels. Uniqkey specializes in providing military-grade password management solutions to bolster European companies against the growing threat of cyberattacks and data theft. With this fresh capital, Uniqkey plans to scale its operations across Europe, aiming to become a market leader in password management within three years. The funds will be used to accelerate growth, enhance their product, and meet the latest cybersecurity standards.
Rising geopolitical tensions are putting pressure on the EU to keep pace with global technological advancements. Decades of underinvesting in digital infrastructure has made Europe over reliant on technology from foreign powers (US and China), which challenges Europe’s Digital Sovereignty. As the digital world increasingly becomes the battleground for power, startups like Uniqkey play a crucial role in Europe gaining more digital independence.
In 2024, the global losses to cybercrime are projected to be $9.5 trillion, up from $3 trillion in 2015. German companies alone lost €205.9 bn to cyberattacks in 2023 whereas the total losses to cyber crime in the European Union was €268bn in 2018. These are astronomical amounts and tell the story of the cyber threat we should all take seriously and act on.
With the rising threat levels, and global tension from conflicts between Ukraine/Russia and US/China, domestic cyber security capabilities have become a key agenda point for Europe. The total sum allocated for digital innovation is €7.6bn, of which €1.6bn go to the wide deployment of the cybersecurity capacities across the economy.
The biggest security risk Europe faces is the low security among its SMEs. 24.3m SMEs make up 99.8% of all companies in Europe and the fact that 12m SME’s (50%) today don’t have a cyber security plan in place, could paralyse the European economy. However, serious regulations in the area are just around the corner (NIS2 and DORA) – these hold directors and boards personally responsible if the companies they represent don’t have good IT security implemented. Just as GDPR changed the way companies process data, so NIS2 will change the way companies approach IT security.
Today, companies underestimate the risk of cyber-attacks that can effectively wipe out their existence. Employees leave larger data traces than ever before – due to increased digitization and due to modern working methods such as “work from anywhere”. This makes companies vulnerable to cyber attacks and data theft. Encrypted password protection is the most effective weapon in this war. Uniqkey, with its military-grade cyber security solution, moves this weapon all the way to the individual employees, which dramatically strengthens every company against cyber attacks and data theft.
81% of data theft and cyber attacks are due to poor or careless handling of passwords. This is precisely why employees are often the main target for hackers. Uniqkey’s solution requires a mobile app when logging into the company’s systems – in the same way we have local ID apps across Europe when using our bank accounts (Denmark: MitID, Sweden: BankID etc). It’s easy and fast. All passwords are encrypted to the highest standard and practically impossible to break – and users no longer have to remember their passwords.
“Today, everybody’s got a mobile phone. Mobile phones have become an essential way we access our everyday life online. That is exactly why we’ve made the mobile phone central to Uniqkey’s security solution, and a big part of why we’re seeing great demand for our solution. In the same fashion as mobile apps have changed the way we send money instantly or access our bank accounts, Uniqkey will change the way we access systems internally within the company – easy, fast and secure,” says Hakan Yagci, CEO & Founder of Uniqkey.
For Uniqkey the vision goes beyond passwords. The company’s ambition is to become the employees digital security guard – protecting them, educating them and heightening the cyber awareness level across organisations. The end goal is to make European citizens and employers more secure and protect companies against cyber attacks.
Today, the company is announcing a new investment round of €5.35 million from Swedish VC, BackingMinds, in combination with industry veterans such as Jesper Zerlang (ex-CEO of Logpoint), Lars Ankjer, Otto Krabbe, Rolf Bladt and several well known angels and key employees.
“Today we protect 500+ SMEs across Europe and we’ve seen great demand for our cyber security solution, having grown 100% YoY over the past two years. We can really feel the pull in the market and want to keep investing in growth and product. With the investment, we invest in continued growth and keep up with the latest safety standards,” says Hakan Yagci, CEO & Founder of Uniqkey.
This new funding will help accelerate the way we scale our technology to thousands of companies across Europe in the coming years. Protecting SMEs is at the heart of what we do and hopefully we can play an important part in Europe’s rising cyber landscape,” says Simon Cederstråhle Hellstrøm-Melander, CMO of Uniqkey.
“At BackingMinds, we invest in what we call blind spots – overlooked areas with great potential. With less than 1% of all founders in Cyber security being immigrants and with only 2% of all Cyber security startups coming from the Nordics, Uniqkey stands out as a hidden gem,” says Susanne Najafi, Founding Partner at BackingMinds.
“After tracking 500+ cybersecurity startups across Europe, it was clear that Uniqkey stood out. We have been impressed by Hakan, the company’s management team, their technical expertise and are very happy to support them in their mission to protect Europe from the growing cyber threat,” says Sara Wimmercranz, Founding Partner at BackingMinds.
Hakan Yagci (CEO & Founder) officially started Uniqkey, after witnessing the complexities in implementing and using cyber security solutions in his previous work. After leaving OrderYoyo, which IPO’ed in 2021, he set his sails on founding Uniqkey, assembling a team and working hard to get to where the company is today. The company currently employs 50 people.
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Read the orginal article: https://arcticstartup.com/uniqkey-raises-e5-5m/
