Belfort, a KU Leuven spin-off focused on encrypted computation, has successfully raised $6 million in seed funding to advance its mission of bringing encrypted data processing into real-time, practical applications. The round was led by Vsquared Ventures, with participation from Anagram, Protocol VC, Inovia Capital, Syndicate One, Prototype, Credibly Neutral, and high-profile angel investors such as Jeff Dean (Google’s Chief Scientist) and Naval Ravikant.
The fresh funding will allow Belfort to expand its team, accelerate product development, and support enterprise pilot programs across its offices in San Francisco and Leuven.
Addressing Critical Data Security Challenges
Recent large-scale data breaches, including the UK Ministry of Defence breach impacting nearly 19,000 Afghan nationals and intelligence personnel, underscore the urgent need for advanced data protection. While traditional security measures protect data at rest or in transit, Belfort is addressing the crucial gap of data security during processing.
Belfort has developed the world’s first purpose-built hardware accelerator for encrypted compute, allowing sensitive data to be processed in its encrypted form without exposure to servers, cloud providers, or privileged insiders. By eliminating performance bottlenecks that have long hindered encrypted computation, the company enables large-scale, real-time deployment across industries. Its technology is already available on AWS Marketplace, targeting sectors like blockchain, finance, healthcare, and government.
Industry Impact and Vision
“AI is transforming everything, but the infrastructure to keep sensitive data and models secure hasn’t caught up. Encrypted compute is the answer, but without hardware acceleration, it doesn’t scale. The company that solves that could become the next billion-dollar player,” said Michiel Van Beirendonck, Co-Founder & CEO of Belfort.
Belfort’s technology is built on years of research from KU Leuven’s COSIC lab, led by Prof. Ingrid Verbauwhede, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist of Belfort and a global authority in cryptographic hardware. Co-founders Michiel Van Beirendonck and Furkan Turan developed the underlying breakthroughs, joined by Laurens De Poorter, former crypto VC at Kraken Ventures and strategist at Google[x].
Supported by ERC research grants and participation in a DARPA contract, Belfort is positioning itself at the forefront of next-generation cybersecurity infrastructure.