Compliance startup Kertos, supported by the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, has secured €14 million from private investors. This is the largest investment raised by a startup from the CISPA startup incubator since its founding in 2019. It is also the first Series A financing for an incubator startup – a significant success for the young company and the innovation environment at CISPA.
The round was led by global fintech investor Portage, with participation from existing investors Redstone, 10x Founders, Seed + Speed, and Pi Labs. Kertos develops AI-native infrastructure for automating compliance and risk management at scale. The platform enables secure, locally adapted compliance in line with EU regulations (e.g., GDPR) and AI regulations (e.g., AI Act).
In fall 2023, with the support of CISPA, the startup received government funding of nearly €800,000 from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (now: Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space). With a total of €20 million in funding to date, Kertos now plans to further expand its AI offerings and expand throughout Europe.
“Cybersecurity and AI are among the key factors for the digital future – and companies like Kertos are providing exactly the solutions that the market urgently needs,” says Maximilian Wolf, Head of Technology Transfer at CISPA. “The fact that investors recognize this also confirms the path we have taken at CISPA in supporting these companies.”
Dr. Kilian Schmidt, co-founder and CEO of Kertos, also emphasizes the importance of the collaboration with CISPA: "The financing round is a significant milestone for us and confirms our vision from day one: compliance should be a driver, not a pain point. It must be intelligent, scalable, and 100% automated. The collaboration with CISPA has been an important technological building block for us on our journey so far. Access to the cybersecurity community, the structured support environment, and the guidance provided by the incubator have helped us make significant progress at an early stage. We are very grateful for that."
About Kertos:
Kertos is reshaping how compliance challenges are handled by combining regulatory expertise with AI-based automation. The startup enables companies across Europe to automate compliance processes and keep pace with complex regulations on data protection, AI, and governance.
Kertos' “E2ESec” project received nearly €800,000 in funding in 2023 from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (now the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space) as part of the StartUpSecure initiative. The solution integrates into any IT landscape in seconds, identifies assets, provides real-time insights, defines risks, and automates compliance workflows – from documentation creation and evidence collection to risk monitoring. This significantly reduces the time and resources required. With Kertos, companies can navigate safely through GDPR, ISO 27001, NIS2, SOC II, the AI Act, and many other regulations. Compliance becomes a sure-fire success: seamless, scalable, and effortless. Find out more at www.kertos.io.
