Startup of the Day: Blindspot Technologies, Czech cybersecurity company
Established in 2023 by David Cermak, Blindspot provides a cybersecurity solution that specializes in providing DDoS protection, along with Web Application and API security, tailored specifically for the B2B segment. Recently, the startup announced a €1.4 million finding round led by Presto Ventures. With the investment, Blindspot aims to open new representative offices in South-East Asia and North America.
In the Startup of the Day column, David Cermak, the co-founder and CEO of Blindspot shares more details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.
The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originated from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.
Tell us about your startup. How does it work?
If a DDoS attack occurs and a customer is attacked, all traffic is routed through the Blindspot infrastructure. The scrubbing center separates malicious traffic from legitimate traffic, which is allowed to continue on to the customer’s network.
“Quality and reliable DDoS protection means the customer will not even know they’re under attack. From their point of view, the data passes through and no abnormalities are detected.”
A simple analogy would be a security guard at a sports stadium who only lets the non-problematic fans in. The guard decides by checking their records and actual behavior, as well as their friends and known associates.
How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?
The primary reason for DDoS solution development was to meet our own cybersecurity needs. Of course there were other reasons that led down this path. Statistics was one of them – according to data, the frequency of DDoS attacks is on the rise, as well as the dependence on the digital infrastructure, which is unprecedented to any point in history.
Another reason was that the on-premise solutions have very limited capacities and often are not able to deal with the high volume of attacks, simply because the infrastructure is insufficient. This has been proven numerous times in the past.
How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?
From the initial idea to an MVP it took approximately 3 years. On our way to the MVP we’ve encountered various problems regarding different expectations of our potential customers. We had to think of different models of deployment as some of them need to have their traffic analyzed and scrubbed all the time, which is the nature of our “Always-On” deployment model.
Some, on the other hand, prefer to have the traffic filtered only during the moment of attack, so we stop the attacks “On-Demand”. For this deployment type, the business needs to provide us with their data samples.
However, in some cases the customer data policy is so strict it doesn’t allow them to provide any data to third parties – in such cases, we’re able to provide two other types of deployment where the detection of an attack takes place within the client infrastructure itself and is only redirected to our infrastructure for scrubbing when the on-premise (client side) detection goes off.
When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?
There was no official launch date. Once we’ve finished the development of the Blindspot DDoS protection solution and we were sure that it works flawlessly, we started deploying it. The first deployment of the solution took place in the spring of 2021.
Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?
Our business model is simple. We deploy the solution with only very little effort on the side of our partner or an end customer and we charge the client with the volume of the scrubbed traffic.
What are your target markets and consumers?
Our target markets are Europe, North America, and South-East Asia. The end clients would be those who want to protect themselves against the cost of the downtime — the companies that lose revenue or reputation.
If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.
It’s just too soon to send out any metrics or analysis of the performance of our service or startup. The Blindspot solution is by now deployed only for few clients and our monthly income from it counts in lower tens of thousands of USD.
What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.
Currently, our team at Blindspot Technologies consists of 20 people. However due to our ambitions and plans to grow the product, we are ready to adequately expand our team as needed.
“We encourage one another and establish a space where you can freely share your thoughts and opinions. We are proud to be members of the team that emphasizes collaboration and aspires to grow successful individuals as well as good people.“
At the moment, we are mainly looking for developer positions. We envision young talents with a passion for cybersecurity who can create products with a real impact on cyber space.
Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.
In November this year, we secured a seed round of €1.4 million:
- 700,000 from Presto Ventures
- €300,0000 from Damir Spoljaric (Gi21)
- €400,000 from Prozeta
What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.
In this field, our expertise also lies in network operation, cloud services, and R&D. We aim to create and operate a network that requires us to only configure the services themselves, not the network devices, such as switches and routers, as that should be automated, and to some extent in our infrastructure, it already is. We aspire to become the world leader in the preferred DDoS protection solution providers.
Our ambition is also to open new representative offices in South-East Asia and North America in the near future.
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