Belgian startup Aikido lands $17m to bring it's 'no BS' security platform for developers to SMEs world-wide

Aikido, the "no BS" security platform for developers and SMEs, has raised $17 million in Series A funding led by Singular.vc, with participation from Notion Capital and Connect Ventures. The round comes just 6 months after Aikido's $5.3 million seed funding, making it the fastest capitalized startup in Belgian history.

Aikido was created out of frustration with clunky, legacy security tools that "waste developers' time." The platform centralizes all necessary code and cloud security scanners in one place, making security simple for SMEs and doable for developers without industry jargon or red tape.

Willem Delbare, CTO and Co-founder, Aikido: "Security, like compliance, used to be for the big guys, but now it's a growing requirement for all companies. It's critical for SMEs to win customers and grow upmarket, but the security burden falls on developers' shoulders."

Aikido simplifies this challenge with an all-in-one platform that brings together essential security features. It has a simple UI and a freemium self-service model, allowing developers to easily manage security and function as a security engineer.

Henri Tilloy, Partner, Singular.vc: "Aikido has an incredibly unique approach to security. It's simple, leverages open-source, and it's easy to set up and use, yet it ticks off the boxes of company compliance and security requirements in one go."

Launched in April 2023, Aikido is already used by over 3,000 organizations and 6,000 developers. The company's rapid growth includes a recent win with Visma, which chose Aikido to secure its portfolio of 175+ companies. With 30% of its customers in the US, Aikido eyes the international market, helping developers and SMEs worldwide get security done. The new funding will be used to deepen the platform and push Aikido onto the global stage.

"Security has long been dominated by established players. We're outsiders here," said Delbare. "I'm building Aikido from the experience of an unsatisfied customer and a frustrated developer. Our promise is straightforward security for developers and SMEs."

www.aikido.dev

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