Soverli, an ETH Zurich spin-off building what it describes as a sovereign operating system layer for commercial smartphones, has raised $2.6 million in pre-seed funding as it looks to bring auditable, high-assurance mobile environments to governments, enterprises, OEMs, and consumers without requiring new hardware.
The Zurich-based cybersecurity company said the round was led by Founderful, with participation from the ETH Zurich Foundation and Venture Kick, as well as cybersecurity figures focused on trusted computing and high-assurance systems. Soverli positions the financing as validation of a product thesis centered on digital sovereignty, which it said is becoming a major geopolitical and investment priority across Europe, even as smartphones remain controlled mainly by Android and iOS ecosystems that are not fully auditable by the organizations that depend on them.
Soverli’s core claim is a patent-pending methodology, developed over more than four years of research at ETH Zurich, that enables multiple operating systems to run simultaneously in isolation on a single device. The company said this would allow a sovereign, customizable, and auditable OS to run in parallel with Android on any commercial smartphone, preserving the full Android experience while allowing users to switch to a sovereign environment in milliseconds. The company said its approach requires no hardware modifications, aiming to remove the security-versus-usability trade-off that often defines hardened mobile solutions.
As an early demonstration of the concept, Soverli said it ran Signal within its sovereign OS environment and substantially reduced the attack surface by isolating the app from Android entirely. The company argues this model can keep sensitive communications confidential even when the primary OS is compromised, and it frames the approach as particularly relevant for mission-critical users who cannot afford device downtime or forced sacrifices in everyday functionality.
Soverli also tied its messaging to broader concerns about systemic fragility in mobile infrastructure, pointing to the risks of failures driven by software updates, misconfigurations, or other disruptions that can impact large numbers of devices at once. In that context, the company said its architecture is designed to maintain continuity by keeping an isolated environment running independently if Android fails or is compromised.
The company said early prototypes developed at ETH attracted attention from public-sector stakeholders and enterprises focused on operational safety and business continuity, and that interest grew further as European smartphone manufacturers and integrators assessed the strategic implications of a sovereignty-focused layer that can run on consumer-grade hardware. Soverli said that momentum contributed to the decision to spin out as an independent company.
Soverli said its first application is mission-critical communication, and that public-sector pilots are underway with organizations responsible for emergency response and critical infrastructure, where high availability is essential for teams such as police officers, firefighters, and EMTs. The company also pointed to additional use cases for journalists and human rights workers seeking secure messaging protection even when the main OS has been compromised, and for enterprises exploring secure bring-your-own-device models that separate personal and business environments without forcing employees into the restrictions typically associated with company-managed phones.
With the new funding, Soverli said it plans to expand its engineering team, bring its technology to more smartphone models, strengthen integrations with mobile device management systems, and scale partnerships with OEMs. Long-term, the company said it aims to establish a new standard for software layering on phones that makes digital sovereignty broadly accessible on commercial devices.
KEY QUOTES:
“Availability is mission-critical, yet organizations still rely on operating systems they cannot control or audit. We built a fully auditable smartphone sovereign layer that stays operational even when Android is compromised. It’s a paradigm shift: instead of hoping the OS never breaks, Soverli guarantees continuity if it does, without forcing users to give up the modern smartphone experience they expect.”
Ivan Puddu, Co-Founder and CEO, Soverli
“People deserve phones they can actually trust, and OEMs must deliver it. Soverli’s Swiss-made sovereign layer is the kind of breakthrough that can rewrite the rules of mobile security.”
Antonia Albert, Investor, Founderful
