CyberRidge's EIC Accelerator Buries Data Under Optical Noise

The standard answer to quantum computers breaking today's encryption is better mathematics. CyberRidge's answer is physics. The Israeli company, founded in 2021, spreads an optical signal across a multi-terahertz bandwidth, manipulates its phase with a continuously changing optical key and then buries it below the noise floor of the fibre. An attacker who taps the cable records noise, so there is no ciphertext to store and decrypt later. CEO Dan Sadot puts it bluntly: "If no raw data exists, there's nothing to hack, today or years from now."

The EIC Accelerator selected the project, CyberRidge - Carmel, at its October 2024 cut-off for blended finance under the challenge for emerging quantum technology components, and CORDIS records a grant of €2,488,500. The grant agreement was signed on 10 April 2026 and the project runs from April 2026 to March 2028, making it one of the latest-starting awards from that cut-off. By then the company had already come out of stealth with $26 million raised.

A fifth start-up out of Ben-Gurion

Dan Sadot ran the optical communications laboratory at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev for nearly 30 years, and CyberRidge is his fifth company, Globes reported when it came out of stealth: two of the earlier four closed and two were sold, including Banias Labs, co-founded with Avigdor Willenz, which sold for about $240 million. The hardware borrows short-pulse lasers from satellite synchronisation work, and in November 2025 the company announced a partnership with the Swiss femtosecond laser maker Menhir Photonics, whose pulses it describes as essential rather than merely useful: the receiver can only synchronise and recover the signal if the pulses are coherent across a very wide spectrum.

Field tests and one paying agency

The public evidence is deployments rather than published measurements. Telecom Italia tested the system over a 200km fibre network in its Turin laboratories, there is a 150km deployment in Singapore under the Singapore-Israel industrial R&D programme, one of the largest cloud providers is an unnamed user, and an Israeli security agency put it into an operational system and is described as the first major paying customer, according to Globes. SecurityWeek adds organisations in defence, intelligence and telecommunications in Europe, Australia and Singapore, all on the company's say-so. Gartner named CyberRidge a Cool Vendor in data security in 2025, and the Carmel platform was a finalist for best emerging technology at the 2026 SC Awards.

Revenue is not disclosed. The company's quoted customer testimonials are anonymous, from an "Israeli Defense Contractor" and from FiberCop, and no third-party security evaluation of the unrecordability claim has been published.

1. Working system on carrier fibreTested200km at Telecom Italia, 150km in Singapore, per Globes.
2. Paying customersOne reportedAn Israeli security agency; no revenue figure.
3. Independent verification of unrecordabilityNot publishedClaims come from the company and its partners.
4. Market launch under the EIC projectToo earlyProject started in April 2026 and runs to 2028.

Investors first, grant second

CyberRidge's $26 million came in two parts, both announced at the end of October 2025: a $10 million seed led by Awz and a $16 million extension from Arkin Capital, Redseed VC, Elron Ventures and the EU's EIC. The EIC's part is the grant now recorded in CORDIS, and the money was to take the hardware from prototype to full production. The company's accounts are not public.

The war in the region cost it business, Sadot told Globes: activity in Spain stopped, and NATO indicated cooperation would have to run through a European company, while Italy and the EU continued with demonstrations and grants. "It's not a walk in the park, but business continues," he said.

An Israeli company inside a European quantum programme

Israel is associated with Horizon Europe, so CyberRidge qualifies for EIC Accelerator money, and the award sits under the EIC's challenge on emerging quantum technology components rather than its open call. The practical European content is real: a Swiss laser supplier, a test bed in a large Italian carrier's laboratories, and the NATO procurement problem Sadot describes, which pushes a non-European vendor toward European partners. For the EU, funding a photonic alternative to post-quantum cryptography hedges a bet it is also placing on quantum key distribution.