Oxford, Reading and Bristol cyber companies feature in the 2021 CYBERTECH100
Four cyber security companies across the region have been listed in the annual list of the world’s most innovative providers of digital solutions which was launched today. All 100 companies on the FinTech Global  list help financial services firms fight off cyber-attacks and protect their data.
The CyberTech industry for financial services has seen huge growth over the last four years as operations are increasingly moving to the cloud and organisations expand their spending on securing their digital infrastructure. Total annual investments in the sector grew from $0.7 billion in 2016 to more than $6.2 billion last year. That's an increase of nearly nine times at a compound annual growth rate of 72.5 per cent.
As a result, the competition to be identified as one of the leading 100 CyberTech companies globally was even fiercer this year. A panel of analysts and industry experts voted from a list of more than 1,000 companies produced by FinTech Global. The finalists were recognised for their innovative use of technology to solve a significant industry problem, or to generate cost savings or efficiency improvements across the security value chain.
FinTech Global is also a founding member of the International RegTech Association. RegTech, or Regulatory technology, is a new technology that uses information technology to enhance regulatory processes. With its main application in the financial sector, it is expanding into any regulated business with a particular appeal for the Consumer Goods Industry.
The four companies from across the region on the list are:
Oxford-based E2E Assure Ltd. Established in 2013, e2e was founded on the premise that technology should support analysts, but not dictate their behaviour. This led to the development of e2e’s SOC platform built for Analysts (Cumulo) and kept in-house to ensure no reliance on a third party roadmap.
Reading-based Exonar is a data discovery company building the software financial services organisations use to discover their data at scale, keep it safe and realise its value.
Founded in 2007, the company is backed and funded by Beringea, Amadeus Capital Partners, Winton Ventures and Downing Ventures. In 2021, Exonar was recognised by Tech Nation as one of the fastest growing tech scale-ups in the UK and securing additional funding from its investors.
Immersive Labs, based in Bristol and founded in 2017, empowers organisations to equip, exercise, and evidence cyber skills capabilities. With the Immersive Labs platform, organisations can align human capabilities against actual cybersecurity risks, battle-test teams against real-world threats and crises, measure their cyber expertise and build security culture in development and engineering teams. The company is backed by Goldman Sachs and Summit Partners and its customers include some of the largest companies in the world across financial services, healthcare, and government, amongst others.
Originating from the University of Oxford, PQShield was set up in 2018 and isa leader in Post-Quantum Cryptography. The company provides quantum-secure cryptographic solutions for software, software/hardware co-design and data in transit. This is particularly important where long lifecycle, performance and lasting confidentiality are a priority, now and for years to come. PQShield helps customers transition their product lines from legacy systems to quantum-secure standards.
