Patents, Pressure, and Persistence: A Tech Startup Journey with Netarx
In this episode of Tech Startup Stories, Natalie Binns reconnects with Sandy Kronenberg, founder and CEO of Netarx, to explore how the business and the broader cybersecurity landscape have evolved over the past 12 months. What emerges is a conversation shaped by acceleration, where advances in AI are not only creating opportunity, but fundamentally reshaping the nature of risk.
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When Technology Moves Faster Than Preparedness
Over the last year, one of the most significant shifts has been the rapid democratisation of AI. What was once technically complex and resource-intensive, such as deepfakes, has become increasingly accessible, more convincing, and far easier to deploy at scale.
Sandy highlights how the evolution from basic deepfakes to fully generated avatars represents a step change in both sophistication and threat. These are no longer imperfect imitations. They are increasingly indistinguishable and capable of operating across video, voice, and text in ways that challenge traditional verification methods .
As a result, the assumption that the person on the other end is who they say they are is beginning to erode.
The Rise of Trust as a Security Layer
Netarx was built around a simple but increasingly urgent premise: identity and trust must become a core layer of cybersecurity.
Rather than focusing solely on traditional defences such as firewalls or endpoint protection, the platform addresses what Sandy describes as the human layer of security, where the majority of breaches actually begin. From phishing attacks to social engineering, the entry point is often not technical vulnerability, but human interaction.
The solution lies in continuous identity verification across all forms of communication, whether email, video calls, or messaging platforms. This approach shifts security from a reactive model to a proactive one by validating not just access, but intent.
A Market Catching Up
A year ago, the challenge was not convincing organisations that the problem existed, but that it was urgent.
Today, that is changing.
With high-profile breaches and increasing awareness of AI-generated threats, large enterprises, including banks and financial institutions, are beginning to act. Requests for proposals are increasing, and regulatory frameworks are evolving to reflect the new reality.
Standards such as upcoming revisions in security compliance are beginning to formalise what organisations need to have in place, moving trust and identity verification from something optional to something required.
Standing Out in a Saturated Market
Cybersecurity is not a quiet space. With hundreds of companies competing for attention, differentiation is increasingly difficult.
For Netarx, the approach has been to focus on a category that remains under-addressed. While billions are spent annually on cybersecurity, only a small fraction is allocated to disinformation, social engineering, and deepfake-related threats. Yet these are the areas driving a significant proportion of breaches. As awareness grows, so too does the opportunity, but also the challenge of educating the market and standing out in a landscape filled with similar messaging.
Looking Ahead
The trajectory is clear. Threats will become more sophisticated, more accessible, and more widespread.
Adoption of solutions like Netarx will likely be driven by two forces: regulation and necessity. Compliance will push organisations to act, but large-scale incidents will accelerate that adoption even further.
As Sandy notes, it may take a significant event, a moment that shifts perception at scale, for widespread behavioural change to occur.
A Story of Timing and Readiness
What makes this conversation compelling is not just the technology, but the timing.
Netarx sits at the intersection of a problem that is rapidly becoming unavoidable and a solution that is still in the early stages of adoption. The challenge is not just building the right product, but being ready when the market catches up.
Because in a world where identity can be simulated and trust can be manipulated, the question is no longer whether this problem needs solving. It is how quickly organisations are willing to act.
Listen to the full episode with Sandy Kronenberg, from Netarx on Tech Startup Stories, hosted by Natalie Binns, and follow for more conversations that focus on the true realities of building a startup.
Listen to the Podcast
Available on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.