Mills & Reeve advises cyber tech firm on growth funding

The investment into Leeds-based Cavero Quantum was led by private equity manager Foresight Group – which also has East of England interests – and Northern Gritstone, an independent investment company founded by the Universities of Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield.

Cavero Quantum has developed password-less encryption technology for secure key generation and authentication. It is said to be compatible with legacy hardware, requires little bandwidth and has the potential to secure against cyber attacks by quantum computers.

The technology is attractive to a wide range of sectors and has immediate market application through replacing multi-factor authentication and one-time passwords with a high security, frictionless, passwordless form of authentication.

Founded by Professor Ben Varcoe and Dr Frey Wilson, Cavero Quantum will use the funding to begin commercialising its technology and launch its first product.

Professor Varcoe will support Cavero Quantum alongside his existing role as Professor of Quantum Information Science at the University of Leeds, while Dr Wilson will become Chief Technology Officer.

As part of the investment, the founders will be supported by the appointment of James Trenholme, as CEO, and Andrew Wallace as Chair. Trenholme is an experienced software entrepreneur who has previously founded and exited an identity services start-up whilst Wallace has significant deep-tech experience in quantum computing.

Cyber attacks are estimated to cost the global economy $7 trillion per year and are driving investment across the cyber security market, including in password-less authentication which is projected to be worth £17 billion per year by 2027.

Demand for Cavero’s solution is expected to further increase as existing cryptographic methods become more vulnerable to quantum computers.

Zickie Lim, head of venture capital investment at Mills & Reeve, said: “Ben and his colleagues in the university’s quantum science team have developed this world leading technology that will have a major impact on cybersecurity.

“It’s been a privilege to help the team secure the capital investment to commercialise its password-less cryptography that will become a leading player in a burgeoning sector dedicated to fighting against cyber attacks across the globe.”

Richard Ralph, Investment Manager at Foresight, said: “Whilst Cavero Quantum’s technology is potentially revolutionary to quantum cryptography, it offers the potential for immediate improvements on existing cryptographic approaches due to its dual authentication and password-less nature, thereby providing improved security against existing cyber attacks.”

James Trenholme added: “The technology is the first solution in the world that can replace security standards like ECDH without compromising on architecture and customer experience, keeping data safe for the future as Quantum computing becomes the norm.”