Kaspersky Lab has named the winners of its first Security Startup Challenge and given awards to two European companies, from Slovakia and Germany.
Each team was awarded a share of $80,000 prize fund and the top winner was granted post-programme support.
The first prize of $50,000 has been rewarded to a Slovakia-based company Excalibur which provides authentication to any legacy system such as PC, Mac or webpage and therefore helps move away from passwords using as a security token.
German company Pipe was ranked second and awarded $20,000. The firm delivers a secure browser-to-browser file transfer services without a file size limit.
The Kapersky Lab's Security Startup Challenge (SSC) is a global programme run by the company together with Mangrove Capital Partners and the ABRT Venture Fund.
It includes a three month mentor driven scheme for 23 startup projects in cybersecurity and related areas such as fintech, healthcare, mobile, the Internet of Things and the cloud where the founders are provided with business, cybersecurity and cross-industry knowledge.
Under this programme, the startups participate and explore the recent trends, learn to create an action plan and develop their projects, how to attract the customers, improve products, collect market feedback data, analyse the competition and plan financing for their projects.
Additionally, they have an opportunity to work remotely and report on a regular weekly basis to the cybersecurity experts and startup mentors as well as their progress is being tracked by the experienced entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. There are also two bootcamps co-hosted at PwC in Luxembourg where the respective teams can share their experience and ideas with the peers.
"As the number and sophistication of cyber threats are evolving significantly from year to year, we decided to encourage young entrepreneurs from all over the world to build their own cybersecurity solutions or develop security features in their projects," said Eugene Kaspersky, chairman and CEO of Kaspersky Lab.