Cybersecurity Soft-Landing Workshop Empowers Ukrainian Startups for European Growth
On April 30, 2025, the Seeds of Bravery — a flagship EU-funded project supporting Ukrainian startups — hosted a high-impact webinar on cybersecurity, one of today’s most urgent and fast-evolving domains. Co-organised by Luxinnovation, AxisBIC, and the Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship, the event gathered leading voices from across Europe, including investors, public institutions, and founders, to map out the cyber landscape and highlight strategic opportunities for Ukrainian innovators.
Europe’s Cyber Future: Ukraine at the Centre
The session opened with Anne-Sophie Van Vaerenbergh, Skills & Human Factors Manager at ECSO, who emphasized Ukraine’s pivotal role in Europe’s cybersecurity ecosystem. She also reminded participants that all Ukrainian organizations are eligible for associated ECSO membership.
Two pressing challenges were addressed:
- A workforce shortage, with over 3 million cybersecurity positions currently unfilled across Europe;
- A skills mismatch between industry needs and available talent.
Van Vaerenbergh presented ECSO initiatives tackling these issues, including:
- The Road to Cyber platform (free of charge),
- Women4Cyber mentorship (with a Ukrainian chapter),
- The European Cybersecurity Skills Framework.
Luxembourg: A Launchpad for Cyber Startups
Carmelo Dimauro, Deputy Director of Luxembourg’s National Cybersecurity Competence Center (NC3), outlined the country’s advanced support infrastructure — from training programs and compliance support to immersive testing environments like Room 42, which simulates real-world cyberattacks to assess organizational readiness.
What Investors Are Looking For
The conversation then shifted to the investor perspective, led by Pedro Carreira and Christophe Bianco of 33N Ventures, a VC fund focused on cybersecurity and infrastructure software.
Bianco — a cybersecurity founder with a successful exit in Luxembourg — advised:
“Being in cybersecurity is not about moving fast and breaking things. It’s a long game. Startups need resilience and sustainable growth.”
The panel shared key investment metrics, including:
- Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) growth over 50%,
- High customer retention and lifetime value,
- Scalability of both product and team.
However, they stressed that beyond the numbers, trust, founder credibility, and deep market understanding are decisive.
Passbolt: From Side Project to Global Platform
Kevin Muller, Co-founder and CEO of Passbolt, traced the journey of his open-source, team-focused password manager from an internal tool in India to a platform now used by over 40,000 teams in 100+ countries.
Through Luxembourg’s Fit 4 Start accelerator, Passbolt received €150K in equity-free funding — helping secure early traction and later raise over €10M from venture capitalists.
“Trust takes years to build and seconds to lose,” Muller said. “In cyber, you need patience. There are no shortcuts.”
From Problem to Startup: The Cyber Innovate Model
Ronan Coleman, Director of Cyber Innovate at Munster Technological University, presented a different model of innovation — where students begin not with a product idea, but a real-world cyber problem. Several startups have already emerged from the program, showcasing a needs-led approach to cybersecurity entrepreneurship.
EU Cyber Regulations: What Startups Must Know
Legal experts Lorcan Moylan Burke (DLA Piper) and Anastasiia Shylova (Cyber Innovate) gave an accessible breakdown of the evolving EU regulatory landscape, including:
- The NIS2 Directive (for critical sector resilience),
- The DORA Regulation (for financial sector resilience),
- The Cyber Resilience Act (for product-level security).
They also discussed the GDPR, ePrivacy Directive, and the Digital Services Act, underscoring their extraterritorial impact on Ukrainian startups entering the EU market.
Looking Ahead: AI, Deepfakes, and a Security-First Culture
In a closing keynote, Artem Mykhailov of ISSP offered a forward-looking view on the cyber threat landscape. He highlighted:
- The dual use of AI by attackers and defenders,
- The emergence of deepfakes as a cybersecurity risk,
- The growing complexity of digital threats.
He stressed the need for proactive risk management, strong cyber hygiene, and cultivating a security-first mindset across organizations.
Ukrainian Innovation in Action: Hideez
To conclude the event, Yaroslava Vasylenko, CMO of Hideez — a Seeds of Bravery grantee — pitched their passwordless authentication platform, featuring:
- Biometric passkeys
- QR-code mobile logins
- The Hideez Key, a secure hardware token
“91% of data breaches stem from authentication weaknesses,” said Vasylenko. “We built a system that simplifies security — no passwords, no friction.”
Already in use by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Hideez is now scaling across Europe.
“Seeds of Bravery helped us refine our go-to-market strategy. It’s more than financial — it’s strategic.”
▶️ Watch the full recording: YouTube link
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