From start-up to enterprise: ENISA's recommendations on building EU cyber-champions

Based on feedback from key experts, such as founders of start-ups, venture capitals, incubators, accelerators and public institutions, ENISA identifies a number of specific challenges and opportunities faced by NIS start-ups in their development within the EU. 

ENISA's report concludes with a set of recommendations to start-ups, SMEs, and entrepreneurs active or interested in entering the cybersecurity market. In short, ENISA recommends to:

• Carefully and clearly define product- and service-development strategy;
• Invest in building team with the proper mix of skills;
• Invest in compliance with standards or certification schemes;
• Leverage existing European clusters specialised in cybersecurity;
• Invest in networking and build mentorship-like relationships with larger enterprises;
• Understand the EU funding opportunities available and assess their usefulness;
• Pursue partnerships and events that will allow to position solutions to prospective customers.

This non-exhaustive list of recommendations aims to serve as actionable good practices to help cybersecurity start-ups better reach their objectives and potential as regards business growth. In particular, the report is helping in:

• understanding the start-up landscape from a technological and market perspective and determining what is currently established in the EU with regards to NIS products and services;
• gaining insight into the investment and funding channels available for NIS start-ups from both the public and private sector;
• identifying the main challenges that start-ups may face in their endeavours and ways in which they can address them;  
• building knowledge of growth opportunities for the EU NIS start-up market, within the context of current EU policy frameworks, at all stages of evolution for start-ups. 

The study is available here: Challenges and opportunities for EU cybersecurity start-ups