Kazimi Raises 2.2 Million Euros to Protect Against Mobile Bots

The Berlin-based cybersecurity startup Kazimi has closed an oversubscribed pre-seed funding round totaling 2.2 million euros. The round was led by Market One Capital, with additional participation from IBB Ventures as well as several managers and experts from the mobile, gaming, and financial sectors. Kazimi is developing a security solution designed to help app providers detect automated bot activity and better protect their first-party data.

Bots distort app data

With its technology, Kazimi is addressing a problem that is becoming increasingly relevant as mobile advertising and artificial intelligence gain prominence. Apps continuously collect signals from their users to evaluate marketing campaigns, optimize offers, or provide data for AI applications. However, not every apparent user activity actually comes from a human.

Bots can generate interactions and thereby distort companies’ data sets. This can not only lead to flawed analyses but also result in the inefficient allocation of marketing budgets and compromise the quality of AI systems when they operate on false or manipulated data. Kazimi therefore aims to enable app developers to distinguish human users from automated activities while ensuring data privacy.

Cryptography Aims to Distinguish Real Users from Bots

To this end, the Berlin-based startup’s solution secures communication signals within an app. This allows developers to verify their own first-party data and detect various forms of non-human activity. Among other things, the company relies on privacy-preserving cryptographic proofs. The goal is to verify the origin and quality of signals without compromising the protection of users’ personal data.

Co-founder and Chief Product Officer Andreas Naumann sees a lack of transparency in particular as a problem with the existing mobile infrastructure. Until now, app providers have not had sufficient means to reliably determine which signals come from real users and which from bots. Kazimi aims to close this gap and give companies more control over their first-party data.

Founders Bring Experience from Adjust

Behind Kazimi is a team with experience in mobile security and ad fraud. The founders were previously involved in building security and fraud detection systems at Adjust. The Berlin-based mobile analytics company was acquired by AppLovin in 2021 for approximately one billion U.S. dollars.

In addition, the team says it has worked on security systems for other mobile analytics companies and networks. This experience will now be incorporated into a standalone security infrastructure for the app economy.

Market One Capital and IBB Ventures Invest

The oversubscribed funding round is led by Market One Capital. IBB Ventures is also investing in the Berlin-based startup. Several angel investors with experience in mobile gaming and other technology sectors are also participating.

These include former Rovio CTO Petri Hyökyranta and former Supercell data scientist Janne Peltola. Erik Massmann, former CFO of the Birkenstock Group and Sportradar, is also an investor.

Petri Hyökyranta describes the team’s approach as a potential paradigm shift for the mobile industry. He says the combination of reliable bot detection, better data, and compliance with data protection requirements is crucial.

Lead investor Jacek Lubinski, a partner at Market One Capital, sees a growing need for reliable first-party data, particularly with the increasing use of AI. In his view, Kazimi could evolve into a fundamental security layer for the global app economy in the long term.

The Multi-Billion-Dollar Mobile Advertising Market

According to market data cited in the funding announcement, global spending on mobile advertising reached approximately $419 billion in 2025. By 2035, the market could grow to more than $1 trillion. As advertising budgets rise, so does the economic damage caused when bots distort marketing data. This is particularly relevant for companies that invest large sums in acquiring new users and automatically optimize their campaigns based on app data.

Kazimi also points to the rising share of automated internet traffic. According to data from Cloudflare, bot traffic is projected to surpass human internet traffic for the first time in 2026. Bots are also playing an increasing role in fraudulent activities within mobile advertising. This creates a twofold problem for companies: they must detect ad fraud while simultaneously ensuring that their analytics and AI systems are based on data that is as reliable as possible.

Kazimi aims to become the security layer of the app economy

Kazimi’s clients to date include mobile gaming studios, rewards platforms, and fintech apps. The technology is primarily aimed at app providers that use marketing budgets to acquire and retain users. The 2.2 million euros raised in the pre-seed round will now be used to scale the technology and further expand into new markets.

However, Kazimi does not position itself exclusively as a traditional ad fraud company. The startup aims to create a security infrastructure that provides app providers with verified and, as far as possible, unaltered first-party data. With the increasing automation of marketing and the use of AI, the very question of whether a human is actually behind a data signal could become a decisive factor for the global app economy.