“Every successful cyber company starts with a validated, marketready product. Working with Kx will provide a valuable opportunity for LORCA members to glean advanced, data-led insights and improve their market readiness, as well as access commercial expertise from Kx”

Saj Huq
Programme Director
LORCA
  • Cyber innovators will benefit from access to advanced data platform
  • Kx becomes LORCA’s latest corporate partner, joining Lloyds Banking Group, Dell Technologies, Kudelski Security and the Global Cyber Alliance

London, UK – 11 February 2020 : The London Office for Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement (LORCA), the government-backed programme supporting the UK’s most innovative cyber companies, has announced a partnership with Kx, the world’s fastest time-series database, to give the cyber scaleups in the programme access to advanced data processing capabilities.

Kx provides its customers with the fastest and most flexible tools for processing realtime and historical data – in a simple and unified platform. After 25 years serving the market, Kx is the worldwide leader of in-memory, time-series databases and the basis for cybersecurity products in companies around the world.

LORCA is based in and delivered by the Plexal innovation centre, established by Delancey as part of Here East in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Backed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, LORCA acts as a catalyst for collaboration in cyber and is delivered by Plexal’s innovation team in collaboration with Deloitte and the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT). It’s supported by corporate partners Lloyds Banking Group, Dell Technologies, the Global Cyber Alliance, Kudelski Security and its latest corporate partner Kx.

Through the partnership with Kx, LORCA members will receive 12 months of dedicated support designed to help them scale, and will have access to the Kx platform, allowing them to improve their product research and development by processing and analysing data more efficiently. From industrial IoT to edge device security, cyber innovators taking part in the programme will be able to use Kx to enhance their products and detect threats faster, whatever their product specification.

The partnership will be spearheaded by Kx Ventures, an arm of the company dedicated to supporting early and growth stage companies. As well as investing licenses in LORCA members and making technical resources available, Kx Ventures will offer guidance on sales and lead generation, advising how the scaleups can get to market faster.

This will be a unique opportunity for Kx to collaborate with LORCA’s broader cyber ecosystem – which encompasses government, academia and corporates – as well as the participating scaleups. Kx Ventures’ innovative business model also facilitates a full licens in return for revenue share, should LORCA companies want to continue using Kx beyond the initial accelerator period.

Saj Huq, Programme Director of LORCA, commented: “Every successful cyber company starts with a validated, market-ready product. Working with Kx will provide a valuable opportunity for LORCA members to glean advanced, data-led insights and improve their market readiness, as well as access commercial expertise from Kx. Enabling cyber innovators to develop and scale their solutions while having direct access to industry and investors, is a fundamental part of LORCA’s approach. And this partnership will allow our members to tap into incredibly valuable insights and expertise from Kx.”

Paul Hollway, Head of Kx Ventures and Corporate Finance, commented: “We have been impressed by the calibre of innovators LORCA has sourced from around the world and the clusters ability to drive such companies to success. We look forward to supporting them as a technology partner, having over a quarter of a century experience in high-performance computing. This is a strategic initiative, where the world-leading performance and scalability of Kx will enable LORCA companies to build market-leading cyber solutions, future-proofing them for years to come.”

For More Info Contact:

plexal@wearesevenhills.com

Sophie Ingham Clark
Communications Manager
Delancey
Tel: +44 (0)20 7448 1961

Katharine Walsh
Head of Communications
Delancey
Tel: +44 (0)20 7448 1461

Notes to Editors

About LORCA
LORCA’s objective is to grow the UK’s cybersecurity sector and make the internet safer for everyone by supporting the most promising later-stage companies. Through its forums, programmes and events, it convenes academia, innovators, government, investors and industry (including partners Lloyds Banking Group, Dell Technologies, Kudelski Security, Kx and the Global Cyber Alliance) into a cross-sector, noncompetitive and collaborative ecosystem.

Designed and delivered by the Plexal innovation team, LORCA’s 12-month accelerator programmes are matched to each cohort’s needs. Members benefit from international trade delegations, opportunities to engage with industry, mentoring and workshops on everything from marketing to scaling globally. They also benefit from engineering, commercial and technical support from delivery partners Deloitte and CSIT.

LORCA launched in June 2018 with backing from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and is tasked with supporting 72 scaling companies, creating up to 2,000 jobs and securing £40m in investment by 2021. Since then, companies from cohorts one, two and three have raised over £58m in investment and won 514 contracts. Notable success stories include cyber company ZoneFox being acquired by Fortinet, CyberOwl winning a contract with the Ministry of Defence as a result of being involved with the programme and working with delivery partner Deloitte and Privatar raising $40m in a Series B round. LORCA has just welcomed its fourth cohort, which is its largest and most international yet.

For more information on LORCA, visit lorca.co.uk

About Kx
Kx is a division of First Derivatives, a global technology provider with more than 20 years of experience working with some of the world’s largest finance, technology, retail, pharma, manufacturing and energy institutions. Kx technology, incorporating the kdb+ time-series database, is a leader in high-performance, in-memory computing, streaming analytics and operational intelligence. Kx delivers the best possible performance and flexibility for high-volume, data-intensive analytics and applications across multiple industries. The Group operates from 15 offices across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, including its headquarters in Newry, and employs more than 2,400 people worldwide.

For more information about Kx please visit www.kx.com.
For general enquiries, write to info@kx.com. For press inquiries, write to pr@firstderivatives.com. For Venture inquires, write to ventures@kx.com

About Plexal
Plexal is an innovation centre and coworking space located in the fast-growing Here East technology and innovation campus in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Collaboration is at the heart of Plexal’s approach to innovation. Its innovation team delivers bespoke programmes for clients like Innovate UK and Transport for London, and specialises in forging connections between industry, academia, investors, startups and scaleups to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing society while getting ideas market-ready.

Plexal has been appointed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport to deliver the London Office for Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement (LORCA): an innovation programme aimed at scaling cybersecurity solutions that are needed most by industry.

It’s also delivering OpenDoor: an inclusion accelerator aimed at scaling solutions that can make society and our economy more inclusive while addressing the challenges of under-represented groups.

Designed as a mini-city (it has its own indoor park, a high street, indoor street food and a prototyping workshop), startup and scaleup members of Plexal’s workspace benefit from a comprehensive programme of events and in-house professional services. Members work in areas like mobility, AI, healthtech, cybersecurity, fintech, the Internet of Things, VR and more.

Plexal was launched in 2017 and was founded by clients of specialist real estate investment advisory company Delancey.

For more information visit: plexal.com