Digital Catapult Gets £1.1m Government Funding To Drive Cyber 101 Scheme

The Digital Catapult has secured £1.1 million in funding to drive its Cyber 101 scheme aimed at providing business advice and mentoring to help UK cyber security startups grow into larger firms.

The funding comes courtesy of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), wich has a £1.9 billion pot for supporting its National Cyber Security Strategy.

Cyber 101

Like most of the Digital Catapult’s schemes, which aims to help encourage startups to scale up into larger firms in technology areas that will boost the UK’s economy, Cyber 101 looks to apply that approach to the cyber security sector over the next four years.

“We’re determined to make sure the UK remains a world-leading digital economy, the best place for innovative firms to start up and scale up, and that we are the safest place to live and do business online. This funding, delivered by the Digital Catapult consortium, and working alongside the new National Cyber Security Centre, will play a vital role in delivering those aims,” said digital culture minister Matt Hancock.

“I’m delighted to announce up to £1.1 million Government funding to help our small and medium cyber security firms get the support they need to grow their businesses. This will help keep us at the forefront of the global fight against cyber threats and attacks.”

The already has a fairly buoyant cyber security sector with firms like Darktrace making their presence felt by making use of technology such as machine learning to identify network threats in a less traditional manner than other end-point security providers.

With this in mind, it could be argued that £1.1 million is not really a large enough sum to properly drive the growth of such security companies.

However, with some startups funding is easy to come by, but the expertise in how to best use it is not so prolific. As such, funding the mentorship and providing expert advice through the Cyber 101 scheme may be an efficient and relatively cost-effective way to give cyber security startups the knowledge they need to grow.

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