Aikido Security raises €5m to offer a seamless security solution to growing SaaS businesses

GHENT, November 14th 2023

Aikido Security, the developer-first software security app for growing SaaS companies, today announces it has raised €5m in a Seed round co-led by Notion Capital and Connect Ventures; with investment from Inovia Capital Precede Fund I, led by partners Raif Jacobs and former Google CFO Patrick Pichette; as well as an impressive roster of angel investors including Christina Cacioppo, CEO of Vanta.

The investment will go towards developing the functionality of the software, in particular ensuring that Aikido’s user-experience and auto-triage is best in class, while keeping the product simple; hiring staff across the product, development, marketing and sales teams; and further growing the Aikido customer base, with a particular focus on solidifying and expanding its already strong foothold across Europe and North America.

As CEO & CTO of Aikido, Willem Delbare explains, “SaaS companies that are building their platform often ‘secure’ their new software by installing numerous scattered tools. This can generate a lot of noise for the developers and throw up a myriad of disparate ‘false positives’, which require attention, but pose no real threat. This causes a huge burden on the staff managing platform security. The problem is only exacerbated by growth -- which can happen quickly in SaaS -- creating huge headaches for the staff responsible for security.”

Delbare continues “Alternatively, if startups choose not to install these tools, they may instead adopt expensive security software solutions which only cover a few factors of application security. Companies are then left with huge gaps in their software’s security, despite their investment. Due to their cost, vulnerability scanners are mostly tailored to larger enterprises, with SME and mid-market companies left without a viable solution to their growing platform’s security.”

Aikido is on a mission to simplify SaaS security with its all-in-one tool that consolidates various application security features. Instead of disjointed solutions, this unified approach enhances control and significantly cuts down on false positives. So far, the company has saved over 1,500 developer working days that would otherwise be spent on false positives. Aikido ranks vulnerabilities by severity, ensuring critical issues are addressed first. Plus, all security data stays within the platform, ensuring safety regardless of staff changes and aiding in business continuity.

Delbare, continues, “Throughout my career I have built multiple SaaS startups, and wasted hundreds of hours piecing together a patchwork of tools needed to secure a new platform. In starting Aikido, I saw a better way to identify critical breaches whilst downgrading the distracting ‘non-issues’ that waste an engineer’s time. We are the only company in Europe doing this, demonstrating a renewed energy for startups in the continent. Our customers now include startups, as well as companies that have grown to over 300 developers - which has resulted in over 1000 total installs in just one year - a rarity in the world of new SaaS solutions. Looking forward, we want to out-do our competitors by offering a solution tailored to those who have yet to find a product that meets their needs.”

Kamil Mieczakowski, Partner at Notion Capital says, “As the pressure on small and mid-sized businesses mounts to demonstrate ever-increasing levels of cyber resilience, the landscape of security tools available to them continues to present challenges, characterized by fragmentation, complexity, and cost. Aikido provides a powerful yet easy-to-use end-to-end solution for code and cloud security, empowering any business to secure itself and its customers through a single tool capable of transforming every developer into a security expert. Despite being only one year old, the company is already scaling rapidly, and we're thrilled to support them on this exciting trajectory alongside our friends at Connect Ventures and an incredible group of angel investors and advisors.”

Pietro Bezza, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Connect Ventures says, "In this new b2b software world, businesses seek SaaS products that combine efficacy with efficiency, value for money, simplicity and focus. We are in the era of the Great Bundle. Driven by the need for efficiency, customers are consolidating point solution software into full-stack software suites. Aikido all-in-one platform for software security fits extremely well with this new framework. We couldn’t be more thrilled to back Willem, Roeland and Felix in democratising access to the best security toolings for every company's size and budget."

Aikido offers the fastest way for a growing SaaS company to secure its platform. The application delivers swift, customer-led onboarding with an instant view of all the critical vulnerabilities to be solved - typically in only a few minutes - lending users the time to focus on core business functions. With world-beating noise reduction, Aikido is able to massively reduce the number of false positives. It adopts a ‘shift left’ approach, the goal of which is to prevent security issues from entering the code which means that if anything goes wrong during the development process, it can be fixed before any breach occurs or that code reaches production.

Designed for SaaS companies, Aikido is a crucial component for meeting critical industry compliance standards, including SOC2, ISO 27001, CIS, HIPAA, and the upcoming European NIS 2 Directive.

About Aikido Security
Aikido is an all-in-one solution that brings together multiple aspects of application security in one intuitive platform. This inclusive approach provides greater control for end users, drastically reducing the number of false positives during security checks. Aikido is founded by Willem Delbare (former founder of Teamleader and Officient), Roeland Delrue (former Showpad), and Felix Garriau (former nexxworks) and venture-backed by Notion Capital, Connect Ventures, and Syndicate One.