London Office for Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement unveils 11 cyber innovators tasked with tackling the industry’s biggest challenges 

The London Office for Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement (LORCA) has announced the 11 scaling cyber companies that will form its second cohort. Selected by industry leaders, these businesses represent the most promising solutions to the two biggest cybersecurity challenges identified at LORCA last year.

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The second LORCA cohort is focused on user-centric security and securing supply chains – the issues identified by a panel of cyber leaders as most important to industry. The businesses will develop solutions that make it easier for employees to keep cyber-aware and safe, and technologies that enable better management of the cybersecurity risk in increasingly complex supply chains.

UK Minister for Digital Margot James said: "This latest round of companies selected by LORCA highlights how the UK continues to be at the forefront of cyber innovation. Supporting these businesses through all stages of their growth will help make the UK the safest place to be online and ensure that through the government's modern Industrial Strategy the UK maintains its position as a world leader in cybersecurity."

The cohort includes Xanadata, which allows customers to rapidly hunt for millions of cyber threats on any network both for live traffic, in real time and faster than real time to enable rapid historic assessment, processing several months of activity in a matter of minutes.

Further cohort members include Crypto Quantique Ltd, which has developed a quantum driven secure chip and created a security platform that makes end-to-end security seamless and easy-to-implement for connected devices. 

Members of the second cohort include:

• CyNation
• RazorSecure
• Bob’s Business
• Cypto Quantique
• OutThink
• Distributed Management Systems
• ObjectTech
• Xanadata
• CyberSmart

Chosen for their growth potential, including commercial application, the 11 scale-ups will receive a year of bespoke support at the government-backed programme, which is delivered by innovation centre Plexal, based at tech campus Here East. The cohort will have access to leading experts, including one-to-one commercial and technical support from Deloitte’s Cyber Risk Service team and engineering support from the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen’s University Belfast.

LORCA, which opened in June 2018 with £13.5m of funding from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS), will support the 11 companies of the second cohort to scale their organisations at pace, access and grow into new markets, secure further investment and recruit and retain the best talent.

The first cohort of nine cybersecurity innovators includes ZoneFox, which was recently acquired by US cyber giant Fortinet, and Ioetec, which connects users to their Internet of Things devices securely.

Lydia Ragoonanan, director of LORCA, said: “We’re thrilled to welcome these high-potential UK companies that have genuinely promising solutions to the biggest industry challenges in cybersecurity. The engagement from industry in the development and selection process ensures that the cohort has clear markets to scale into and is addressing the cyber challenges that will make the most difference to industry. Following on from the success of first cohort, we look forward to seeing these 11 companies grow and thrive.”