In the heart of Vilnius, a nascent cybersecurity firm named CBRX is quietly placing a bold bet: that the shifting dynamics of cyber threats, coupled with the rising pressure on managed service providers (MSPs), will create fertile ground for its AI-driven “SOC in a box” platform. With a fresh €540,000 pre‑seed raise, the startup is now gearing up to accelerate its European expansion — and stake its claim in a space crowded with legacy vendors.
A lean model to disrupt a legacy space
Founded in 2023 by Kazimieras Sadauskas and Audrius Miknevičius (originally under the name Cyberalert), CBRX is building a cloud-native cybersecurity engine that empowers MSPs to evolve into managed security service providers (MSSPs) without huge capital expenditure or heavy staffing burdens.
The core offering is simple but audacious: ingest client logs, run AI-based detection and enrichment, triage alerts, and guide responses — all wrapped in a white‑labeled interface the MSP can present as its own security arm. In effect, CBRX strives to operate as the behind‑the-scenes security operations center (SOC) for many organizations, letting MSPs leapfrog years of investment in infrastructure and talent.
CBRX claims its platform can automate up to 90% of an analyst’s workflows — a claim that, if credible, would radically shift how security teams deploy human capital.
Capital, investors, and expansion plans
In its latest round, Coinvest Capital led with a €270,000 cheque, effectively making CBRX the 51st company in its portfolio and marking its 80th deal. Other backers include Scalewolf, Plug and Play Tech Center, and Firstpick.
“This investment round is especially important for us, as it allows us to accelerate what we already see as an inevitable shift in the market — traditional IT service providers (MSPs) are moving into the field of cybersecurity and becoming MSSPs,” said Sadauskas. He added: “Our goal is to help them make this transition quickly, without upfront costs, complex infrastructure, or the need for an expensive team of experts. This enables service providers to start serving clients today, not months or years from now.”
Coinvest’s managing director, Viktorija Trimbel, offered confidence: “The solution developed by CBRX significantly accelerates cybersecurity processes and enhances overall business resilience against growing digital threats … We believe the company has all the prerequisites to become a major player in Europe’s cybersecurity ecosystem.”
CBRX plans to deploy the majority of capital into scaling sales and partnerships across DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and the Nordics, while also beefing up its AI and product development efforts. Hiring will focus on engineers and AI talent.
The market context, challenges, and opportunity
The cybersecurity space is crowded — legacy players, niche specialists, and open-source defenders all vie for attention. But many MSPs today treat cybersecurity as a bolt-on service rather than a core competency. CBRX’s accessible model — no heavy CapEx for the MSP, white‑label branding, and a promise to scale security offerings overnight — positions it as a bridge solution at a precarious tipping point.
Still, skeptics will call attention to a few hard realities:
Trust & credibility: MSPs will need to convince clients that a third‑party engine can be trusted with their security. CBRX must build demonstrable track records.
Differentiation & defensibility: AI claims are abundant in cybersecurity. To stand out, CBRX must show sustained adversarial resilience, explainability, and tight integration with the threat intelligence ecosystem.
Market fragmentation: Europe’s regulatory regimes (GDPR, NIS2, DORA, etc.) vary by country and vertical. Scaling across DACH and Nordics involves compliance, language, and go-to-market complexities.
Team & execution risk: With a small core team (Dealroom estimates 2–10 employees), CBRX’s execution capacity will be tested as it expands.
Yet, the timing could be favorable. Many MSPs feel pressure to upgrade from commoditized IT services to higher-value security offerings. A turnkey SOC model could be a compelling path for them to step into cybersecurity faster.
Editorial: Why this matters — and where CBRX might head next
What makes CBRX’s story worth watching is not just its technology, but its position at a crossroads. MSPs globally are under margin pressure; cybersecurity is one of the few premium services they can fold into their offerings. If CBRX succeeds, it could catalyze a wave of “security-as-an-upgrade” transitions at MSPs across Europe.
In a few years, if CBRX nails reliability, customer trust, and compliance breadth, it might evolve into a core infrastructure layer — akin to how cloud‑backend platforms powered SaaS growth. Its real moat may lie not just in AI signal detection, but in how deeply it embeds into MSP billing, customer reporting, and compliance pipelines.
Still, the path is narrow. The biggest wins will come not if CBRX becomes a generic AI security box, but if it partners tightly with domain verticals (finance, healthcare, energy) and supports tailored threat models. Further, expansion outside Europe will require adjustments for regulation, trust, and local threat landscapes.
If CBRX can prove its model in DACH and the Nordics, it may well set the template for how smaller MSPs globally pivot into the cybersecurity frontier — not by becoming giants themselves, but by riding on the infrastructure built by nimble platform plays.
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