Belfort, a pioneering company that originated as a spin-off from KU Leuven, is making significant strides in the field of encrypted computing. They recently announced the successful completion of a $6 million seed funding round, which will be instrumental in making encrypted data processing a practical reality for everyday, real-time applications. This funding round was spearheaded by Vsquared Ventures, a specialist in deep technology investments, and saw participation from a diverse group of investors, including Anagram, Protocol VC, Inovia Capital, Syndicate One, Prototype, Credibly Neutral, and several prominent angel investors such as Jeff Dean, Google’s Chief Scientist, and Naval Ravikant.
The urgent need for enhanced data protection has been dramatically underscored by recent events, such as the July data breach involving the UK Ministry of Defence. This incident exposed sensitive information about nearly 19,000 Afghan nationals and intelligence personnel, leading to an emergency response with an estimated cost of approximately £7 billion, or almost $10 billion. Such incidents vividly illustrate that data requires protection not just when it is stored, but crucially, also while it is actively being processed. Belfort is addressing this critical need with its hardware accelerator, the first of its kind specifically designed for encrypted computing. This innovative technology enables data to be processed directly in its encrypted form, thereby removing any exposure to servers, cloud providers, or even insiders who might have privileged access. By overcoming the long-standing performance limitations associated with encrypted computation, Belfort is making large-scale deployment of this vital technology practical and achievable. Their technology is already available on the AWS Marketplace and has broad applications across various sectors, including blockchain, finance, healthcare, and government operations.
Belfort’s technology is built upon years of extensive research conducted at KU Leuven’s renowned COSIC lab. This research was led by Professor Ingrid Verbauwhede, who is a co-founder and Chief Scientist at Belfort, as well as a globally recognized authority in cryptographic hardware. The foundational breakthroughs were developed by co-founders Michiel Van Beirendonck and Furkan Turan. They are further supported by Laurens De Poorter, who brings a wealth of experience from his previous roles as a crypto venture capitalist at Kraken Ventures and a strategist at Google[x]. Their groundbreaking work has received significant support from major European Research Council grants and has also included participation in a highly competitive U.S. government contract with DARPA, further solidifying the impact and recognition of their innovations.
How the funding will be used: With this new funding, Belfort plans to double the size of its team, accelerate the development of its products, and support early enterprise pilot programs from its offices located in San Francisco and Leuven.
KEY QUOTE:
“AI is transforming everything, but the infrastructure to keep sensitive data and models secure hasn’t caught up. Encrypted compute is the answer, but without hardware acceleration, it doesn’t scale. The company that solves that could become the next billion-dollar player.”
Michiel Van Beirendonck, Co-Founder & CEO of Belfort
