PQShield, a London-based cybersecurity startup that specialises in post-quantum cryptography, has come out of stealth mode with a £5.5 million seed investment from Kindred Capital, Crane Venture Partners, Oxford Sciences Innovation and angel investors including Andre Crawford-Brunt, Deutsche Bank's former global head of equities.
According to the startup, quantum computers “promise an unprecedented problem for security, since they will be able to smash through traditional public-key encryption and threaten the security of all sensitive information, past and present”. For that reason, the company is developing quantum-secure cryptography, advanced solutions for hardware, software and communications that resist quantum ‘threat’ yet still work with today’s technology.
“Whether cars, planes or other connected devices, many of the products designed and sold today are going to be used for decades. Their hardware may be built to last, but right now, their security certainly isn’t. Future-proofing is an imperative, just as it is for the banks and agencies that hold so much of our sensitive data,” explains founder and CEO Dr. El Kaafarani,
The team, a spin out from Oxford University, is already working on commercialisation and roll-out as well. Its System on Chip (SoC) solution, built fully in-house, will be licensed to hardware manufacturers, while a software development kit will enable the creation of secure messaging apps protected by post-quantum algorithms. Bosch is already a customer.
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