Exclusive: Sosafe expands throughout Europe

The Cologne-based IT security start-up is opening four new locations and plans to significantly expand its business outside Germany. Several experienced managers are joining the company for this reason.

Ehrenfeldgürtel in Cologne doesn't exactly look like a center of the German IT security scene. But right here, between a suburban train station, various Turkish restaurants and kiosks, sits SoSafe, one of the most successful German start-ups in this industry. And from this inconspicuous street in the West German megacity, the start-up now wants to go out into the wide world: London, Paris, Amsterdam and Copenhagen are the destinations.

They have big plans at SoSafe, especially considering the age of the start-up. Niklas Hellemann founded it in 2018, together with Lukas Schaefer and Felix Schürholz. Hellemann, a psychologist by training, sees the reason for the rapid success in the market niche that SoSafe plays in. The company does not offer special protection software like many other providers in this sector, but trains employees of other companies in dealing with data theft, phishing emails and other cyberattacks. The company calls its offering security awareness and training.

Specifically, it involves, for example, imitation phishing emails that redirect employees who click on them to a page with learning content. The idea is that instead of attending a seminar and quickly forgetting what they have learned, employees are trained on an ongoing basis.

And demand for such offerings is growing, especially in times of Corona. "Hybrid working has opened up a whole new range of gateways for attackers," says Niklas Hellemann. A survey conducted by the consulting firm Deloitte last year showed that more than three-quarters of all decision-makers in politics and business are concerned about data theft and malware attacks. And the scams are constantly changing. The LKA Lower Saxony, for example, is currently warning of scam emails that aim to frighten recipients with alleged consequences of the Russian sanctions for private and company accounts.

SoSafe is growing rapidly in light of this environment, and now has more than 1,800 customers. The startup also raised $73 million in its Series B funding round in January (Startbase reported). This was led by Highland Europe.

Startbase exclusively learned that SoSafe is now planning to open four new locations in Europe in order to be able to provide customers with more tailored advice on site. "We already serve numerous multinational companies, and accordingly our platform already reaches many users outside the German-speaking world," Hellemann explained. But the new locations are intended to help reach even more companies and also offer international employees a permanent place to work.

The start-up has set its sights on the Benelux countries and the Scandinavian secotr with an office in Amsterdam, the UK and Ireland with a location in London, and Southern Europe with the center in Paris. Another office is also to be added in Copenhagen. The local teams are to be built up and managed by locally networked executives. The Benelux and Nordics sections will in future be headed by Bas Van Erk, who previously worked for the analysis companies Newzoo and Oxyme, among others. In London, Rohit Gami, previously Head of Inside Sales at compliance training provider Skillcast, will take the helm. The Paris office is headed by Jean-Baptiste Roux, previously Manager at the web analytics company AT Internet, among others. For the entire international expansion process, SoSafe was able to win Oscar Trelles, the former Sales Manager of the market research company Instapanel.

Niklas Hellemann is optimistic that SoSafe's offering will also attract a lot of interest outside Germany. "We have a solution that is very focused on data protection and privacy, so our origin from the home region of the GDPR is a clear advantage," he says. Expansion beyond that is also being evaluated on an ongoing basis. "Basically, we see a pent-up demand worldwide for the human aspect of IT security, and that extends beyond Europe," he explains.