About the company
CybPass helps organisations build secure, resilient autonomous and unmanned systems by protecting the artificial intelligence that powers them. As AI becomes an increasingly critical component of decision-making, it also creates new opportunities for cyber attack. CybPass identifies vulnerabilities across AI-enabled systems, tests them against real-world adversary techniques, and strengthens security from end to end. By uncovering weaknesses before deployment, CybPass ensures that cyber compromises do not become physical failures in the field.
About the project
Project Background
Founded in 2023, CybPass is a UK-based cybersecurity company focused on securing autonomous and unmanned systems. The company specialises in AI assurance, helping organisations identify, assess, and mitigate vulnerabilities within AI-enabled technologies before they are deployed. As industries increasingly rely on autonomous systems in sectors such as defence, aerospace, robotics, and critical infrastructure, CybPass supports organisations in ensuring these systems remain secure, reliable, and resilient against evolving cyber threats. Through a combination of AI security, governance, safety testing, and compliance expertise, CybPass aims to build trust in the next generation of intelligent autonomous technologies.
Current Situation
- Operates as an early-stage UK technology company specialising in AI assurance and cybersecurity for autonomous and unmanned systems
- Supports organisations developing AI-enabled technologies by identifying vulnerabilities, assessing risk, and strengthening system resilience before deployment.
- Works at the intersection of AI security, safety, governance and compliance, helping organisations build trust in autonomous systems.
- Operates within rapidly evolving and highly regulated sectors where security, reliability and assurance are critical requirements.
- Is focused on supporting the safe adoption of autonomous technologies across mission-critical industries.
- Continues to scale its commercial activities as it expands into new markets and industry sectors.
Project Objectives
- Evaluate market positioning to better understand how CybPass is perceived within the growing AI assurance and cybersecurity landscape.
- Investigate competitor approaches and market trends to identify opportunities for differentiation and growth.
- Assess commercial pricing models and explore how customers value AI assurance services within mission-critical industries.
- Support evidence-based business decision-making by providing external market insights and independent analysis.
- Develop a scalable framework for future commercial strategy that can be adapted as the business expands into new sectors and geographies.
- Strengthen long-term growth planning by ensuring key commercial assumptions are tested against market demand and customer expectations.
- Provide practical recommendations to support future fundraising and expansion activities as the company continues to grow
What do you think the students brought to the business? Were there ideas different from what you could have achieved if you have conducted this project in-house?
The students' greatest contribution was something no amount of in-house effort can replicate: genuine intellectual distance. In deep tech, expertise is both an asset and a blind spot. The deeper you go, the harder it becomes to see your business as the market sees it.
Coming from non-cyber backgrounds, the students carried none of our assumptions. They asked the "naive" questions that turned out to be the fundamental ones, and challenged positions we had long stopped questioning. That unbiased outside view is precisely what internal teams, however capable, cannot manufacture, and it reshaped how we think about our market.
How do you think the Business Projects have helped your business?
The project transformed how we approach commercial strategy. We came away with a far sharper, evidence-based understanding of our pricing and our true position in the market, not as we perceived it internally, but as the market actually values it.
More importantly, it shifted our mindset: pricing is not a decision you make once, but a hypothesis you must continuously reframe and stress-test. For an early-stage company, embedding that discipline now is worth far more than any single answer.
How will you use the outcomes in your business going forward?
As we are undergoing a revamp for our website, we plan to integrate the live impact dashboard that the students have helped us research and design into our new site. This will be invaluable in communicating our impact to our funders, partners and the public in real-time.