AI at the service of cybersecurity: a concrete step forward
Every year since 2020, Wavestone has identified Swiss cybersecurity startups in its eponymous radar. While AI has established itself as a cross-disciplinary subject in all fields, the 2025 Radar focuses on the use of artificial intelligence as a tool, not just as a subject to be secured, but as a technology at the very heart of the cyber response.
Several startups are using AI to automate, enhance or personalize their solutions:
Egonym uses generative AI to anonymize faces in images and videos while preserving useful traits like age and emotion — striking a rare balance between privacy and utility.
Hafnova applies real-time AI to detect, block, and report threats across critical infrastructures with high responsiveness and minimal delay.
Aurigin combats deepfake-based fraud in real time using multimodal AI that simultaneously analyzes voice, image, and text to validate identities.
RedCarbon delivers autonomous AI agents capable of handling complex cybersecurity tasks such as threat detection, hunting, and compliance monitoring — significantly reducing analyst workload.
Baited leverages AI and OSINT to generate hyper-realistic phishing simulations, enabling organizations to test and train employees under real-world conditions.
It’s good to see AI becoming an essential defensive weapon contributing to the defense of our information systems.
Strong momentum around threat detection, response and monitoring
The second strong trend this year is the emergence or reinforcement of startups specializing in intrusion detection, suspicious behavior detection, incident response and continuous supervision.
This segment, already well established historically, is undoubtedly gaining strength with several new entries:
RedCarbon: AI agents for threat detection & automated hunting.
Swiss Security Hub: continuous monitoring of SAP systems with XDR integration.
Cyberservices : XDR platform based on the Google ecosystem.
Hafnova: real-time cyber supervision in critical sectors.
Tirreno: on-prem platform for online fraud detection with user trust scoring.
At a time when cyber-attacks continue to increase in number and complexity, preventive, contextualized and autonomous detection is and will remain key to strengthening operational resilience.
New ground explored: digital sovereignty and secure hardware
Among the notable additions, The Cosmic Dolphins stands out with its sovereign hardware approach:
The Cosmic Dolphins: Swiss smartphones with dual-zone OS (Shark Zone / Dolphin Zone), kill switch, and hardware-first approach to privacy.
Swiss innovation isn’t limited to software: mastery of the physical infrastructure is becoming an issue of trust, sovereignty and differentiation.
Key Figures
Geographical focus: undisputed predominance of Lausanne and Zurich, but other regions are gaining ground
Unsurprisingly, most startups are located around two main technological clusters: Zürich and Lausanne. This confirms an already existing trend since these two cities are hosting Swiss Federal institutes of technology (ETHZ in Zürich, EPFL in Lausanne).
These universities are providing a fertile ground for startups as they offer support in terms of infrastructure but also in terms of collaboration with students and labs. In return, intellectual property is shared between startups and universities. This model is a success for Switzerland as it allows to continuously improve the economy of these regions with a good balance between investment and research.
Nevertheless, other regions such as Geneva and Ticino are showing increasing dynamism, with several new startups emerging in this year’s edition. This points to a gradually diversifying ecosystem, supported by regional initiatives like innovation hubs and dedicated startup incubators.
Methodology
Wavestone’s Swiss Cybersecurity Startups Radar identifies new players in the Swiss cyber innovation ecosystem. Its objective: to provide a global and critical view of an ever-renewing environment.
- Startups were selected according to our eligibility criteria:
- Head office in Switzerland
- Less than 50 employees
- Less than 8 years of activity (established as of 2017)
- Business model around a specific product (software or hardware)
- Startups were identified and evaluated according to the following procedure:
- Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) data consolidation
- Evaluation in regard to above criteria
- Qualitative interviews with the startups
