Register Now
December 8-11, 2025
Excel London / United Kingdom

Startup Spotlight Competition

Thursday, December 11 | 4:15 PM

Excel, London

ICC Maritime Suite, George V 1 & 2, Level 3

The Black Hat Startup Spotlight Competition is a pitch contest designed to showcase emerging cybersecurity startups. Finalists are offered the opportunity to present their innovative solutions to a live audience and a panel of esteemed judges for the opportunity to win it all onsite at Black Hat Europe.

Enter your startup today to gain visibility, connect with industry leaders, and accelerate your growth within the cybersecurity sector.

Black Hat Europe 2025 Finalists

After reviewing submissions, our expert-led judging panel has selected four outstanding finalists for the Black Hat Europe 2025 Startup Spotlight Competition. These innovative companies will take the stage at Black Hat Europe 2025 to compete for the top honor. The Winner will compete in the Global Startup Spotlight Competition at Black Hat USA 2026!

Join us as Black Hat proudly showcases the cutting edge of cybersecurity innovation and celebrates the brightest new stars in our industry!

Honorable Mention

Beyond our four finalists, the Black Hat Startup Spotlight judging panel identified an exceptional company worthy of recognition. This Honorable Mention demonstrated remarkable innovation in addressing critical cybersecurity challenges. While they won't compete in the final pitch competition, this promising startup represents the depth of talent and innovation within our cybersecurity ecosystem.

About The Competition

Win your way to exhibit at Black Hat Europe!

Create and submit your 5-minute video using the Form below, calling out your company’s competitive advantages of the product or solution and how it will help cybersecurity pros. 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 Europe 2025
  • One 20-minute speaking session in the Startup City Theater
  • One 30-minute call with an Omdia Cybersecurity Analyst

Key Dates

  • August 20: Competition Opens
  • October 27: Submissions Due and Competition Closes
  • November 10: Finalists Announced
  • December 11: Finalists Pitch LIVE at Black Hat Europe
  • August 2026: Winner Pitches LIVE at Black Hat USA in the Global Startup Spotlight Competition

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 Europe 2025 to enter the competition. There are no entry fees.

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

Submit your Entry

The competition is now closed for entries. Be sure to follow along for your change to submit to Black Hat Asia 2026 and the chance to win your way to the Global Startup Spotlight Competition in August 2026 at Black Hat USA.

Emcee

Mike Privette

Founder, Return on Security

Mike Privette is the founder of Return on Security and the industry’s first cybersecurity economist. With over 18 years of experience spanning roles from security engineer to Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Mike recognized the need for practitioner-focused economic intelligence in the cybersecurity landscape. By analyzing data on technological advancements, regulatory changes, and economic indicators across major economies, he connects cybersecurity with global economic dynamics to empower security leaders, founders, and investors alike.

Judges

Trey Ford

Trey Ford

×

CISO

Bugcrowd

Trey Ford is a seasoned strategic advisor and security thought leader with over 25 years of experience in offensive and defensive disciplines (incident response, application, network, cloud, and platform security). Trey has held key leadership roles at Deepwatch, Vista Equity Partners, Salesforce, Black Hat, and more. He has also been a valued member of Bugcrowd's advisory board for over a decade.

Trey is passionate about working with enterprise leaders, corporate directors, and investors to help teams strengthen their technology and execution strategy. He believes in a hands-on approach to building, breaking, and deconstructing security problems.

Trey has a Master of Science from the University of Texas at Austin and executive education at Harvard Business School. Hailing from Austin, he is a husband, father, and shares his passion for aviation as an instrument rated private pilot.

Simon Goldsmith

Simon Goldsmith

×

CISO

OVO

Simon is the CISO for OVO, a cloud-native UK energy retailer supplying 4 million households with gas and electricity. He is a seasoned security leader with over 24 years of global experience connecting the strategic objectives of CEOs, boards, and government ministers to security risk reduction across the technology, finance, retail, and energy sectors. In addition, Simon is a chartered mechanical engineer and co-authored the ISO/IEC/IEEE 32675-2021 International Standard for DevOps.

Tobias Halloran

Tobias Halloran

×

Director of Startup Ecosystem, EMEA

NVIDIA

Tobias lead’s NVIDIA Startup ecosystem business “Inception” for EMEA. Previously, he was the Head of AI/ML BD and Strategy for AWS Startups, EMEA. He has scaled AI startups to exit as an operator and holds multiple degrees from the University of Oxford, including in the intersection of computer science and philosophy. He has advised hundreds of AI startups, at Entrepreneur First and independently, and is an active contributor to EMEA’s AI ecosystem.

Cat McDonald

Cat McDonald

×

Partner

Albion VC

Cat is a Partner at AlbionVC. She focuses on cybersecurity, defence, and digital resilience, investing in technologies that strengthen trust, security, and operational robustness across critical sectors - from safeguarding data to enhancing national and enterprise resilience. Her portfolio includes companies such as Egress, OutThink, Innerworks, TransFICC and Labrys. She also writes Venture Geopolitics, a newsletter exploring how the worlds of venture capital and geopolitics are converging - and why control of critical technologies is becoming a question of strategic power as much as innovation. Prior to joining AlbionVC in 2018, Cat worked in New York and London as an Investment Banker with Goldman Sachs. She studied Economics at Harvard University.

Lawrence Munro

Lawrence Munro

×

Chief Information Security Officer

Tide

Lawrence Munro is the Chief Information Security Officer at Tide, responsible for the organisation’s global cyber security strategy. He has held senior security and technology leadership roles, including Group CISO at NCC Group and Vice President of SpiderLabs at Trustwave, and has experience as both a CISO and CTO. With a background in penetration testing and social engineering, Lawrence has worked across engineering, operations, and executive management. He provides strategic advice on cyber risk, innovation, and resilience to government, investors, and start-ups, and supports international security initiatives with NATO and the UK Government.

Matilda Rhode

Matilda Rhode

×

Head of Security Operations

Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water

Dr Matilda Rhode is Head of Security Operations at a UK utility. With a career that’s spanned cyber innovation in academia, aerospace, and standards development, she’s worked at the crossover of AI and cyber security. Matilda holds a PhD in AI-driven malware detection from Cardiff University and a BA in Politics and Economics from Oxford. Now firmly focused on operations, she’s all about delivering high-impact cyber solutions that keep pace with both new tech and evolving threats.

Joshua Walter

Joshua Walter

×

Partner

Osney Capital

Josh has held numerous Senior Leadership roles in the Cyber Security sector, with a background in Financial Services prior to that. Josh previously led the Financial Services Sector business at NCC Group, one of the largest Cyber Security providers in the market, engaging with a broad range of CISOs and Security Teams in the largest Tier 1 banks, mid-tier banks, insurers, asset managers and fintech businesses. This experience built a deep appreciation of market themes, demand areas and innovation challenges faced by the Financial Services sector with respect to Cyber.

Subsequently, Josh led Market Strategy at NCC Group, exploring market demand and longer-term innovation requirements from Cyber providers across all sectors. These roles primarily focused on driving growth; defining and executing go-to-market and growth strategies based on deep understanding of market demand in Cyber Security, leading high-performing Enterprise Sales teams and leading global growth initiatives including organic and inorganic opportunities.

Josh has an MBA from the University of Oxford, and a first-class honours degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Birmingham.

NOTE: Judges must disclose any conflicts of interest with participating startups and are not permitted to score. Each startup is scored according to the official competition criteria, with final rankings determined by the average of all eligible judges' evaluations.

Questions? Contact startup@blackhat.com