Latest news with #Goldilock
Entrepreneur
03-07-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Keeping Cyber Secure — and Scalable
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. You're reading Entrepreneur United Kingdom, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. Stephen Kines has been building businesses with his co-founder Tony for over 30 years, but with Goldilock - and its flagship physical cyber product FireBreak - he's scaling a truly global vision. From Wolverhampton to Singapore, his team is tackling one of tech's toughest problems: how to grow fast, stay agile, and never compromise on trust. Entrepreneur UK finds out more. What strategies helped you scale efficiently without compromising quality? My co-founder Tony and I have known each other for over three decades, and we've spent a lot of that time building and scaling businesses. The success stories have consistently been characterised by great people. Hire the best people, empower them to make decisions, learn from setbacks together, and always, always put the customer at the centre of everything you're doing. That's what we've replicated here at Goldilock. We have recruited extremely experienced people to lead our teams globally. Crucially, people who really believe in what we're doing at Goldilock in protecting networks with our physical cyber product, FireBreak. That's how we know they'll consistently make the right decisions for the company. We've also made sure no silos are created between departments as we scale. Keeping our technical team in close contact with our sales, marketing and communications teams has placed the customer at the centre of every decision being made across the board. This means quality of service is never affected and we can maintain the agility we had in the beginning as we're all working to the same end. How did you build and maintain a strong company culture during rapid growth? Goldilock is very much a modern global organisation. We're headquartered in Wolverhampton and the vast majority of our technical team is based there. But in FireBreak we have developed a genuinely new cyber security product that is not only unique but also applicable for every single industry and organisation that uses digital infrastructure, so there was no point in limiting ourselves to launching in just one or two countries or regions. This means the rest of our team is spread out across the globe – from the US to Europe to Singapore to Australia. When you have a scale-up workforce that is so widely dispersed, communication is key. This communication has to be constant and it has to come from the top-down. A main focus when building Goldilock was building a very, very experienced management team. We handpicked a leadership team that not only brought invaluable experience but could make sure each region feels like a cohesive part of the team. Maintaining this cohesive team element as we continue to scale means retaining that startup mindset we had at the beginning, communicating regularly on the direction of the business, getting everyone's buy-in on strategy, and – critically – ensuring no silos ever appear between the technical, sales, marketing and comms teams, as well as our board. We're very lucky that everyone on the team here believes in what we're trying to do at Goldilock and has the same drive and motivation to see this company continue to succeed that Tony and I do. What were the biggest operational challenges you faced while scaling? As with most start-ups, we had to start with a fairly lean team while we went through R&D. Obviously, a small team is great for agility and flexibility – both of which you need a lot of when starting a company. However, it did mean we were spread quite thin. Identifying market opportunities has never been difficult for us with a product that is so applicable across industries, but it then came down to prioritising resources. Using a channel model for sales really helped us here as it allowed us to target various sectors with different needs and pain points – from manufacturing to financial services – without investing too heavily in expertise in-house. The other challenge with a smaller workforce is making sure we don't end up creating bottlenecks. Solving this comes back to choosing great people, empowering them to make decisions and then trusting them to do so. How did you prioritise customer acquisition and retention as you expanded? Since we decided early on that a channel model made sense for us since we sell to so many different types of businesses and organisations, as we've grown, we've worked hard to make sure both our channel partners and end-users truly understand the product and what it can do. We focus on communicating the value FireBreak brings and the ease with which it can be deployed into organisations' existing infrastructure to dramatically reduce their attack surfaces. The key throughout has been making sure both groups – partners and customers – feel totally sure of our support wherever they are in a sales process. What advice would you give a start-up looking to scale in a competitive market? You have to really believe in what you do and then find other people who also genuinely believe in it to join you; experienced colleagues you don't need to persuade to join you end up being the most dedicated workers and best advocates when helping to build your brand and sell to prospects and investors. It's so easy for silos to pop up between departments as you build them out, but if everyone is clear on what the company is trying to achieve as well as the why and the how, everything should be moving together towards the same objective. Then it's all about having a laser focus on your USP. Focusing on what makes us unique and pioneering has got us to where we are today. Ask yourself – what challenge are you solving, what differentiates your solution, and why should it matter to your customers? Building your company around the answers to these questions will help you keep customers at the heart of your decision-making and also help you communicate consistently with external stakeholders as you scale. How have UK trade policies influenced your international expansion and scaling efforts? More accessible export finance solutions for the startup community could help to further accelerate the international reach of pioneering UK technologies like ours and help home-grown startups more easily scale and succeed. Beyond that, to be honest, UK trade policies haven't had too much of an effect on our ability to grow globally. In fact, we have been fortunate enough to work closely with some government departments as we've scaled because of the huge potential of FireBreak in protecting critical infrastructure. The UK's Business & Trade team and the Defence & Security Exports team in particular are excellent – we have been on trade missions and to UK Embassies and High Commissions such as recently in Singapore. The MoD's Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) and Innovate UK have also been very supportive.
Straits Times
02-06-2025
- Business
- Straits Times
British cyber-security firm invests $1.2m in Singapore office, will hire 20 engineers over 3 years
Goldilock co-founder and co-CEO Stephen Kines with the Firebreak device after the launch event held at CyberSG TIG Collaboration Centre on June 2. ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG SINGAPORE – British cyber-security firm Goldilock has invested $1.2 million to open an office in Singapore in July, and aims to hire about 20 engineers in the coming years. The company has also received an additional $800,000 from the UK-Singapore Collaborative R&D fund by Britain's innovation agency Innovate UK and trade agency Enterprise Singapore. The two countries had signed the UK-Singapore Digital Economy Agreement in 2022 to boost digital trade between them. Goldilock will have five engineers – with additional support staff – in the first 1½ years of operation here, before expanding to 20 engineers over the next three years, its chief operating officer and co-founder Stephen Kines said on June 2. The company will also look to reskill engineers in other fields, as it believes in bringing different perspectives to cyber security, he added. 'We're looking for engineers that can understand how to think differently about the network architecture, and look at how Goldilock can be deployed in those different situations,' he said. Goldilock's entry in Singapore comes as the Republic's cyber-security workforce has grown in recent years, tripling from 4,000 in 2016 to 12,000 in 2022. According to a report by US-based consulting firm Research and Markets, Singapore's cyber-security market is expected to double to US$4.82 billion (S$6.2 billion) by 2029. Mr Kines was speaking at an event at the CyberSG Talent, Innovation and Growth (TIG) Collaboration Centre in Ayer Rajah on June 2. The Singapore office – which will serve as Goldilock's Asia-Pacific headquarters – will be located in the Ubi area. It is the third location for the five-year-old firm, after Britain and the United States. Ms Rhiannon Harries, deputy trade commissioner for Asia Pacific (South-east Asia) at the UK Department for Business and Trade, described Britain and South-east Asia as 'natural partners' in technology, with a shared ambition for growth and innovation. 'I am pleased that Goldilock has opened its new office in Singapore, highlighting our cyber-security partnership that is going from strength to strength,' she said in a statement. Goldilock's solutions protect users against cyber attacks by allowing them to segment and disconnect parts of their network they want to protect, Mr Kines said. Users can send a text message which activates the technology and effectively pulls the plug on their systems, making it impossible for an attacker to access, he added. 'Think of it as an invisibility cloak – the attacker can't see and can't attack what isn't there,' he said. He noted this is similar to what British retailer Co-Op did when faced with a cyber attack in May, reportedly taking its computer services offline to foil the attackers. The company is named after the Goldilocks principle of finding a balance that is 'just right', just like in the fairy tale of the same name . In the cyber-security company's case, it aims to find a balance between so-called 'hot storage', where data is quickly and easily accessible, and 'cold storage', which is isolated from the internet. On June 2, Mr Kines also announced the company's new modular unit, which is designed to make its solutions more adaptable to different environments. The technology presents an opportunity for the defence sector as well as other industries in the Asia-Pacific to enhance their cyber-security efforts, said Goldilock board senior adviser Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who attended the event. 'It's an opportunity to bring this brilliant UK invention to the region,' said Ms Trevelyan, who previously served as British Minister of State for the Indo-Pacific. In September 2024, Goldilock was one of 10 companies selected to join the second phase of the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (Diana), a safety and security initiative by Nato, receiving up to €300,000 (S$440,730) in funding as well as other support. It had been selected for Diana's first cohort a year earlier. Mr Kines credited the 'invaluable support' of the CyberSG TIG Collaboration Centre, as well as the British High Commission in Singapore, for allowing Goldilock to make progress in the Asia-Pacific region. The centre, a joint initiative by NUS and the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore, aims to establish Singapore as a global cyber-security innovation hub. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Business Times
02-06-2025
- Business
- Business Times
Cybersecurity firm Goldilock invests S$1.2 million, opens regional HQ in Singapore
[SINGAPORE] Cybersecurity company Goldilock has announced the opening of its first office in Singapore and Asia-Pacific headquarters on Monday (Jun 2), as part of a S$2 million investment. It invested S$1.2 million to open the Singapore office, and received an additional S$800,000 from the UK-Singapore Collaborative Research and Design (R&D) Call Fund by Innovate UK and Enterprise Singapore. The fund aims to encourage the development of ready-to-market solutions for products, technology-based services or processes that have strong market potential for Singapore, the UK or the international market. Goldilock specialises in producing hardware solutions for businesses. Its Singapore office will also serve as a R&D centre. Stephen Kines, co-founder and chief operating officer of Goldilock, told The Business Times that it is currently working with channel partners and distributors. Its local channel partners include NCS and ST Engineering. Goldilock also has existing customers in Australia and Japan. Kines said that Goldilock intends to hire at least five engineers in Singapore within the first 18 months of opening, and approximately 20 people over the coming three years. 'Our progress in Apac would not have been possible without the invaluable support of the CyberSG Talent, Innovation and Growth (TIG) Collaboration Centre,' he said. TIG Collaboration Centre is a joint initiative between the National University of Singapore and the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore. The initiative is one of the goals of Singapore's operational technology cybersecurity masterplan, put together by the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore to enhance the operational technology cybersecurity talent pipeline. 'This milestone represents a deepening of UK-Singapore cooperation on cybersecurity innovation, with Singapore having updated its operational technology cybersecurity last year,' said a spokesman from Goldilock.
BBC News
10-02-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Cyber firm expands at University of Wolverhampton base
A global tech firm has expanded its manufacturing and testing site at the University of Wolverhampton Science Park after doubling its workforce to meet a rise in demand for its said its anti-hacking work has led to it work with Nato, the Ministry of Defence and other organisations responsible for "critical national infrastructure".The firm said it expected to increase its team to 32 employees by the end of 2025 and create 44 new jobs by 2027."We warmly welcome Goldilock's commitment to growing its pioneering cyber security business in the West Midlands," said Sharon Thompson, deputy mayor of the West Midlands. The firm said it had chosen to invest in the Wolverhampton site as it was "scaling up" from research and development (R&D) of its Firebreak programme to large-scale manufacturing. Firebreak is designed to ringfence networks away from the internet to make them inaccessible to hackers, the firm Kines, co-founder and chief operating officer of Goldilock said he was thrilled to be expanding."With sophisticated ransomware and AI-powered attacks on a continuous rise, paired with the increasing interconnectedness of systems, Goldilock's technology provides a critical, foundational layer of defence. "The West Midlands offers us an invaluable hub for innovation, providing access to a diverse pool of talented tech professionals and a supportive business environment from which we can continue to grow the business and get our critical product to where it's needed most, as quickly as possible."City of Wolverhampton Council leader, Stephen Simkins, said: "Goldilock's expansion is a testament to the city of Wolverhampton's growing appeal as a destination of choice for ambitious tech firms, with an extensive R&D network, deep pool of specialist talent and proximity to the region's end-to-end manufacturing supply chain." Follow BBC Wolverhampton & Black Country on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
