Tell us a bit about Citalid and your solution.
Citalid is a decision aid and cyber risk management platform for CISOs and Risk Managers. Our tool calculates the ROI of their cybersecurity investments to help them devise long-term investment strategies adapted to their profile and defend it to their Executive Committee. Our innovative methodology is based on contextual and technical elements of Threat Intelligence, and therefore makes it possible to focus technical teams on the security solutions that need to be implemented.
What impact has the Innovation Prize had?
This prize has had the greatest impact of anything since we created Citalid with significant great commercial benefits. We have signed several contracts with major French companies. It has really increased our notoriety much more than we ever expected. Plus, winning both the Jury Prize and the People’s Choice showed the validity of not only the technical side, but also provided market validation thanks to the audience of CISOs who are our clients/prospects. This dual distinction has helped us enormously in the fundraising process we plan to launch. It’s still underway, but has been greatly facilitated by this prize. We really encourage cybersecurity sector start-ups to apply!
What about your presence at Les Assises?
It was a very powerful first experience. We welcomed so many people at our stand throughout the entire event. We were able to meet representatives from most major French companies and we have had ongoing and extensive contacts with several of them since Les Assises. The business side of the event is crucial for companies like ours. We also led a workshop at Les Assises, which was a very good experience because we were able to explain our methodology and algorithms.
Has your solution evolved?
We received a lot of feedback on our solution during Les Assises and have added them to our development plan. We’re currently having some of our clients test V2 of the product with new features. For example, we can now calculate our clients’ level of defensive maturity based on the list of security solutions installed on their machines. This provides a finer granularity of analysis, lets our clients calculate their level of maturity directly from the platform and simulates the impact of buying a new solution on their financial exposure to cyber risks.
We want to thank the Les Assises, DG Consultants and Comexposium teams, because the Innovation Prize was a real springboard for us. We didn’t expect to see such benefits and such concrete and operational acceleration after winning it.