17 companies from across the UK and the globe join LORCA’s fifth cyber accelerator

• Government-backed innovation programme, which is delivered by the Plexal innovation centre, has selected geographically and demographically diverse startups and scaleups, with 18% of companies female-led companies and 18% of companies BAME-led
• The 12-month programme will scale cyber solutions focused on securing a connected society, advancing digital identity, protecting IoT technologies and enabling secure and privacy preserving data sharing

London, 7 July 2020 The London Office for Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement (LORCA) today announces the 17 scaleups selected to join its fifth cohort of cyber innovators.

After consulting with industry, security professionals, policymakers and a crossspectrum of sectors, LORCA announced an open call in March 2020 for startups with solutions to challenges presented by a connected society, including supply chain security, digital identity and the digital risk associated with an increasingly connected world to apply. The recruitment and selection process was carried out entirely virtually.

The selected members have innovative solutions that relate to identity, IoT, cloud security, autonomous cyber defence, privacy and more.

Conscious that cybersecurity, and the tech sector as a whole, needs to do more to enable diversity, LORCA also encouraged applications from under-represented founders. 18% of its fifth cohort includes scaleups with female founders or CEOs and 18% with leaders from BAME backgrounds.

LORCA’s next 12-month accelerator will support members from across the UK’s cyber ecosystem, including ZeroGuard from Stratford-upon-Avon, RedHunt Labs from Royston in Hertfordshire, InsurTechnix from Cambridge, Cyberhive from Newbury and Academy of Cyber Security from Manchester. LORCA is also supporting four market entrants that are headquartered overseas in Israel (ITsMine and ContextSpace Solutions), The Netherlands (BreachLock) and Argentina (VU Security) and want to enter the UK as part of their international expansion.

The goal of LORCA is to help scale the cyber innovations industry and society need most, while acting as a global landing pad and launchpad for cyber companies. LORCA also cultivates links with cyber hubs and sister programmes from across the UK’s maturing cyber ecosystem, and members of LORCA’s fifth cohort have also been through other UK-based programmes. The CyberFish has taken part in the HutZero programme, while TrustStamp is a graduate of the National Cyber Security Centre’s accelerator. Both have joined LORCA to accelerate the next phase of their scaleup journeys.

LORCA is delivered by Plexal, the innovation centre and coworking space established by Delancey based in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Members of LORCA’s accelerator will also join Plexal’s growing cyber community and connect with Plexal’s partner Hub8, a workspace dedicated to cyber in Cheltenham.

The year-long programme will support the 17 early-stage companies to grow, secure investment, access new markets and participate in overseas trade missions, with the ultimate aim of growing the British cybersecurity industry. LORCA takes zero equity or IP in the scaleups.

The programme is also delivered with Deloitte, which gives members technical and commercial support, and the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen’s University Belfast, which provides engineering expertise and remote testing facilities. Members will also benefit from engaging closely with industry, including directly with LORCA’s corporate partners (including Lloyds Banking Group, Dell Technologies and Kudelski Security) as well as through events, forums and introductions to LORCA’s international network.

LORCA launched in June 2018 with funding from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. To date, the programme has significantly surpassed its investment target, with VC funding for LORCA companies now at £141 million and over 650 commercial contracts signed. Most recently cohort three member CounterCraft received $5m in funding and cohort one alumni CyberOwl raised £1.8m. HSBC invested $7m in LORCA alumni Privitar in June following the company’s $80 million Series C investment in April, which was the fourth largest deal involving a UK startup in the eight weeks since lockdown, according to data compiled by Plexal and Beauhurst.

Saj Huq, Director, LORCA, said: “The pandemic has accelerated many emerging digital trends, as well as the inevitable risks that accompany them. Cybersecurity challenges that were previously on the horizon have been brought forward as society and our economy becomes more connected, and security more critical than ever. The arrival of our fifth cohort highlights that there is world-leading talent and cutting-edge technology available to address these challenges and enable secure, societal-wide digital transformation. LORCA intends to support these companies by helping them scale in the UK and international markets and achieve a closer product-market fit.

“We have members from across the UK and international cyber hubs, while several of the members in our fifth cohort are led by women and BAME founders. But there is still much more for the UK’s cyber community to do to ensure solutions are being created by diverse innovators.

“LORCA has exceeded the initial targets set by the government and provided an unparalleled platform for collaboration in the cyber ecosystem, which has matured and grown at a staggering rate. We intend to continue supporting scaling companies, acting as a catalyst for collaboration between innovators and critical parts of the ecosystem such as investors, industry, academia and government.”

Digital Infrastructure Minister Matt Warman said: “We are committed to helping our innovative cyber security start-ups thrive and maintain our position as Europe’s leading tech hub.

This initiative will see some of the brightest minds from across the country benefit from expert advice to turn their creative ideas into practical business tools and develop the cyber security technology of tomorrow.”

The full list of companies enrolling in the latest cohort can be found below:

1. AdvSTAR provides global threat intelligence and monitoring services based on digital exposure. Its customers span across multiple industries including banking, finance, payment cards, government, stock exchange, domain registrars, universities, hospitality, real estate developers, retail and entertainment.

2. BlockAPT helps SMEs and large enterprises protect their digital assets by unifying operational technologies and automating digital security ecosystems to protect and prevent against advanced persistent threats. Its platform brings together automated threat intelligence, vulnerability management, device management and incident response management through a single pane of glass security management portal.

3. Breachlock’s SaaS platform enables clients to consume both automated and manual security testing on clicks and at scale. It combines the power of cloud, AI, and human hackers to deliver false-positive free vulnerability detection at the speed of DevOps through seamless CI-CD Integrations.

4. Capslock is an online learning academy where people can kickstart a new career in cybersecurity with no upfront costs. Its career focused and offers an immersive curriculum delivered live by industry professionals.

5. ContextSpace has developed a comprehensive privacy information management system platform that enables highly effective data protection, enforcement of regulatory compliance and the fulfilment of data subject rights.

6. CyberHive’s patented technology CyberHive Trusted Cloud was co-developed with the University of Oxford and is a real-time intrusion detection technology for protecting critical infrastructure.

7. InsurTechnix combines AI, analytics and automation to help cyber insurers to properly price policy risks and constantly measure their portfolio exposure. Its C-suite reporting tools help businesses manage their cybersecurity risks. It salso develops secure IoT platforms.

8. TsMine enables corporations to stay protected from internal and external data threats. Its mission is to protect organisational data proactively, seamlessly and automatically while helping organisations stay compliant.

9. MIRACL provides the world’s only single step multi-factor authentication that can replace insecure passwords, complex 2FA and expensive SMS texts on 100% of mobiles, desktops or smart TVs. Purpose-built for sectors where any additional friction drives customers away, it’s been awarded with seven patents and its cryptography licensed to the US Air Force, Google and Intel to block 99.9% of attacks including credential stuffing, password spraying, phishing, man-in-the-middle and replay attacks.

10. Nanotego delivers a technology agnostic cybersecurity solutions that give any computing device the ability to self-govern and autonomously launch defensive countermeasures. With Nanotego’s patent-pending solution embedded, any computing device can autonomously thwart a cyber attack with no dependency on connectivity or human interaction. In a connected world where everything is moving to the cloud, Nanotego is specifically suited for critical applications where checking back with base is simply not good enough.

11. RedHunt Labs provides attack surface management solutions and has created NVADR to solve the perimeter security problem. With years of experience in offensive security, defensive security and Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), RedHunt Labs runs Project Resonance, an internet security research project.

12. The CyberFish blends technical guidance and behavioural analysis to deliver cyberpsychology research, learning and assessment services to organisations worldwide. Its training focuses on human collaboration and leadership – two factors identified as important predictors of cyber resilience and defence performance.

13. Truststamp is a privacy and AI company focused on the use case of identity. It’s developed a privacy-enhancing technique that can be used over any data, even highly sensitive data like biometric data, to create an Irreversible Transformed Identity Token (or IT2).

14. VerifiedWhiteList provides a zero latency, multi-factor authenticated protection service for managing bot traffic at scale and in real-time. Its SaaS API protects network providers, hosting services and websites by managing bots in real time before they reach the web estate, while ensuring no good bots are blocked. Its AI platform learns over time the more bots its sees, and allowing

15. VU is a cybersecurity company that specialises in fraud prevention and identity protection. Its mission is to provide secure digital experiences without friction, both for citizens and businesses, during the digital transformation process.

16. Zamna is an award-winning, VC-backed software company building GDPR compliant identity platforms for the aviation industry. Zamna empowers airlines to verify a passenger’s identity before arriving at an airport. Recognised by airlines, technology experts and investors as playing an integral part in the future of identity management within airlines, Zamna addresses the conflicting challenges posed by increasing numbers of airline passengers, growing privacy regulations, demand for better customer experience and increased security.

17. ZeroGuard is a cyber intelligence platform that puts trillions of data points at your fingertips. This includes everything from domain registrations to covert intelligence on hacking groups.