Startup Award UP24@it-sa: Clear the stage for new ideas

Every founder's story is special

Every start-up story is special. In the case of AlpenShield, Andreas Badelt and Denis Rak saw a gap in the market at their original employer, a large provider of IT attack monitoring systems: free and efficient security operations solutions for SMEs and their IT service providers. Until two years ago, Tobias Lieberum and Prabhakar Mishra were still struggling with a lack of security in data access control in their day-to-day work in finance and consulting. They pooled their skills and expertise and founded CyberDesk: Minimising risk by automatically controlling who can access which sensitive data and how.

Lukas Baumann decided to found LocateRisk because he felt that traditional approaches to IT security in companies were no longer sufficient. The idea was born in 2018 during a hackathon to realise a software solution for assessing cyber risks in the B2B customer sector. Three of the four founders of Mitigant (Kennedy Torkura, Muhammad Sukmana and Nils Karn) studied together at the Hasso Plank Institute in Potsdam. Together with Thomas Fricke, a cloud and Kubernetes security expert, they developed an innovative cloud security solution. Alexander Rausch and Stefan Steinberg spent years supporting companies that were victims of cyberattacks. Until, in 2023, they came up with the idea of using RedMimicry to train companies against attacks with affordable, realistic attack simulations.

Great stage, valuable feedback and partnerships

Young start-ups are entering the market with their ideas and, with the largest IT security trade fair and the Nuremberg Startup Hub, they have exactly the right platform to get off to a flying start. Well over 2,500 young companies have already been supported by NürnbergMesse's experienced startup team at a wide variety of trade fairs at the subsidised joint stands and startup areas and have benefited from the surplus of attention.

And they also appreciate this stage and the nomination for the UP24@it-sa Award. ‘A great opportunity to meet potential users, get valuable feedback on our product and find a platform as a young company,’ says Stefan Steinberg. For Andreas Badelt, taking part in it-sa is ‘extremely important because it is simply THE IT security trade fair in the DACH region’. Tobias Lieberum sees the startup appearance as a ‘great stage to meet up with old companions, get to know new faces and the award nomination is an additional incentive’. Lukas Baumann also appreciates the opportunity to ‘increase our visibility and benefit from the experience and network of other successful start-ups and experts’.

Nils Karn and his three co-founders are taking part in it-sa for the third time: ‘We have had many good discussions and partnerships there in recent years. It is therefore a great honour for us to have also been nominated for the UP24@it-sa Award’.