University of Strathclyde cybersecurity spin-out Lupovis has announced that it has secured pre-seed investment of more than £615,000.

The funding was gained through a syndicate co-led by Techstart Ventures and Nauta Capital, together with an investment by the University of Strathclyde.

Money from the university was made available through the Strathclyde Inspire Entrepreneurs Fund which help firms with early-stage funding. The investment comes through a 50:50 split between the University and alumni donations.

Founded in June 2021, Lupovis said it would also use the money to expand its team and enhance further functionalities within the platform.

Lupovis will also utilise the funding to further develop its proactive cyber-defence solution, led by the team at the University’s Centre for Intelligent and Dynamic Communications, which makes the ‘hunter become the hunted.’

Commenting on the investment news, Dr Xavier Bellekens, the CEO of Lupovis, said: “We are thrilled with the opportunities this investment creates to develop Lupovis’ dynamic deception capabilities.

“Our system uses artificial intelligence to create scenarios which mirror the existing infrastructure of an organisation and engages the attacker into believing they are progressing towards assets of value, turning networks from a flock of sheep to a pack of wolves.

“We are in a unique position where we have unrivalled data on attacker techniques, methods and behaviour. We will feed this data into our platform, so our customers will always remain one step ahead of attackers, predicting their next move, long before they actually make it.”

The spin-out is building dynamic deception tech which uses a network of collaborative decoys to lead cyber-attackers away from assets such as personal data or sensitive information, or to stop hackers shutting down systems as they bid to damage business continuity.

Lupovis offers the attacker incentives that steer them on a certain path. Once a network has been penetrated, the system entices attackers by creating an offensive deception environment, which engages them from the minute a move is made within the network.

Dr Bellekens continued: “The system responds dynamically to the behaviour and skills level of the attacker by using incentives and gamifying the vulnerabilities that engage the hacker. The longer the attacker is engaged, the longer the system is blocking malicious actions that would otherwise stop the network functioning.

“The benefits are uninterrupted business continuity, whilst simultaneously gathering information on the hacker’ skills and strategies that inform security teams of the optimum counter-measure that arrests the breach.”

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Prior to the latest investment, Lupovis had secured funding from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s, the Cyber Security Academic Start-ups Accelerator Programme, Scottish Enterprise’s High Growth Start-up Programme and CENSIS.

Lupovis also received £50,000 in the latest round of funding from the Scottish EDGE, a competition for high growth potential businesses.

Professor Sir Jim McDonald, Principal of the University of Strathclyde, said: “At Strathclyde we are proud of our track record of successfully commercialising innovations and discoveries made by our talented colleagues, and we have formed more than 50 spin-out companies.

“Lupovis is an excellent example of the cutting edge technology being developed at the University and this investment will allow the company to develop their product.

“We have invested alongside new investment partners Techstart and Nauta Capital for the first time and look forward to working with them in a new investor partnership.”

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