VU, a cybersecurity company specializing in fraud prevention and identity protection with a presence in 22 countries in Latin America, Europe and the United States, is one of 11 finalists in the NYCx Cybersecurity Moonshot Challenge, sponsored by the Mayor's Office of the Chief Technology Officer (MOCTO), NYC Cyber Command (C3), the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP). This time, the challenge is to find new, affordable and scalable solutions to protect New York City-based small and medium-sized businesses from cyber attacks.
New York City's nearly 240,000 New York-based SMEs are key to economic growth and opportunity. According to the Center for an Urban Future's (CUF) 2017 report, New York City's SMEs have outpaced large corporations in terms of jobs created. Per year, they create three times as many jobs as companies with more than 500 employees. "From VU, it is a great achievement for us to have been selected as finalists," said Sebastian Stranieri, CEO of VU. "In addition, we feel identified with this statistic as we want to be the largest employer of cybersecurity jobs," he continued.
In a world full of cyber threats, New York City must ensure that SMEs are as capable of dealing with cyberattacks as their larger counterparts. This urgency is driven by several key factors, including interconnected operations, human limitations, education gaps, growing threats, the trend of people bringing their own device to work, and management challenges.
Given that cyberattacks are an increasingly prevalent threat worldwide, the New York City Mayor's Office formed a consortium of partners to launch the competition, including Israel's leading international venture capital firm, Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) and other partners based in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Berlin, London, Helsinki and Paris.
The winning company will receive a $1 million investment from JVP. In addition, four to eight finalists will receive up to $20,000 to test their proposals in New York and expand into the international market. Winners will be announced between December 2019 and January 2020.
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