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April 1-4, 2025
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Black Hat Startup Spotlight Competition

The Black Hat Startup Spotlight is back for Black Hat Asia 2025! This Black Hat special event is a video pitch competition for cybersecurity startup companies to present their products and solutions in front of a live audience at Black Hat Asia.

Submissions are now closed

Finalists

Congratulations to our Top 4 Finalists:

About The Competition

Win your way to exhibit at Black Hat Asia!

Products and solutions can be in development, about to launch or in the recently launched phases.

Finalists Receive

  • One Turnkey Startup booth at Black Hat Asia 2025
  • One 25-minute speaking session in a Business Hall Theater
  • One 30-minute call with an Omdia Cybersecurity Analyst

Key Dates

  • January 1: Competition Opens
  • March 3: Submissions due and competition closes
  • March 7: Finalists announced
  • April 3 & 4: Finalists Exhibit and Present at Black Hat, Winner Announced

Who Can Enter

Any Startup company 5 years old or less with less than 50 employees is eligible to enter the competition.

Note: It is not necessary to be an Exhibitor at Black Hat Asia 2025 to enter the competition. There are no entry fees.

Judges

The four finalists are invited to exhibit in the Startup City area at Black Hat Asia 2025 and present their product or solution live to the judging panel and live audience where a winner will be announced.

Startup Spotlight Judges

Chiko David

Chiko David

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Programs Director

Hatch

 

Lucas Nelson

Lucas Nelson

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Partner

Lytical Ventures

Lucas Nelson is a Founding Partner of Lytical Ventures; with roots as an old-school hacker and cybersecurity expert, Lucas brings deep technical expertise to venture capital.A Kauffman Fellow (Class of 2015), Lucas holds an MBA from Dartmouth and a BS in Computer Science from Purdue University.

Lucas began his career as part of the underground hacking scene, joining DefCon in 1995 as a Goon—helping to run what would become the largest hacker convention in the United States. He later joined @stake, one of the first elite hacking consulting firms, where he legally broke into banks and early internet companies from 2001 until its acquisition by Symantec in 2005.

In the venture capital world, Lucas served as a Principal at Evolution Equity and Gotham Ventures before co-founding Antecedent Ventures with his current partner, Steve Berg. Beyond investments, he has held operating roles at Adobe and several startups, giving him hands-on experience in the challenges faced by high-growth companies.

Jon Ong

Jon Ong

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Sr. Cybersecurity Analyst

Omdia

Jonathan Ong supports Omdia’s Managed Security Services, focusing on managed detection & response (MDR). He covers the analysis of security providers and their offerings, along with trend analysis to bring you what’s hot and what’s passé, with a spotlight on the APAC region.

Jonathan was previously a cybersecurity analyst at a forex trading company and consulted at a boutique firm specializing in cybersecurity frameworks. He brings a business-led approach to security through experiences at a programmatic marketing MNC and a fintech startup group. Jonathan studied at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Illinois and Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics.

Sunil Sapra

Sunil Sapra

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Co-Founder, Chief Growth Officer

Eventus Security

 

Emcee

Shanna Daly

CISO, Opsys

Shanna Daly has over 20 years’ experience across the information security industry. Shanna’s expertise has been called upon during countless data breach investigations, giving her an in-depth understanding of the security implementations that work, and the ones that don’t. Shanna continues to share her knowledge with the industry and has built and managed consulting teams of industry experts responding to all types of intrusions and breaches. Her experience across a wide range of information security domains gives her a unique perspective and a “think outside the box” attitude to securing organisations.

LEARN MORE about promoting your company as an Exhibitor at Black Hat Asia 2025