Belgium’s Aikido Security raises €5M to secure your growing SaaS business; here’s how

Ghent-based Aikido Security, a software security app catering to SaaS companies, announced that it has secured €5M in a Seed round of funding. 

The round was co-led by Notion Capital and Connect Ventures, with participation from Inovia Capital Precede Fund I, led by Raif Jacobs and former Google CFO Patrick Pichette. 

The investment also saw participation from angel investors including Christina Cacioppo, CEO of Vanta.

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, characterised 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,” adds Mieczakowski.

Capital utilisation

Aikido Security plans to use the funding to enhance its software’s functionality, with a specific focus on optimising user experience and auto-triage capabilities. 

The funds will also support the company in hiring across various teams, including product development, marketing, and sales. Aikido aims to expand its customer base, particularly strengthening its presence in Europe and North America.

Co-founder of Aikido Security, Willem Delbare says, “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 adds, ”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.”

A developer-first software security app

Founded in 2022 by Willem Delbare, Roeland Delrue and Felix Garriau, Aikido Security aims to streamline SaaS security through its all-in-one tool, consolidating diverse application security features.

This unified approach not only improves control but also reduces false positives. The platform has already saved over 1,500 developer working days by addressing false positives. 

Aikido claims to prioritise vulnerability resolution by severity and ensure data safety within the platform, promoting business continuity and security even during staff changes.

Willem Delbare says, “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,” adds Delbare.