Archive for June, 2025

Forterro Strengthens Business Intelligence Capabilities with Acquisition of Danish Software Firm TARGIT

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 26, 2025 by itnerd

European industrial software provider Forterro has entered into a binding agreement to acquire TARGIT, a Denmark-headquartered business intelligence (BI) and analytics software company that serves more than 1,000 SME customers across Europe and North America.

LtoR:  David Coste, President, Forterro, with Jakob H. Kraglund, CEO, TARGIT and Claire-Marie Nasr, VP M&A, Forterro.

Forterro provides software solutions tailored to the industrial midmarket, helping businesses strengthen operations and accelerate growth. This deal – Forterro’s first BI acquisition – adds analytics and data intelligence to its offering, enhancing the value it can deliver to customers alongside its core ERP solutions.

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Aalborg, Denmark, TARGIT is known for its cloud and on-premises-based TARGIT Decision Suite – an end-to-end BI platform that automates reporting and enables data-driven decision making. The solution is highly configurable and has a strong footprint in the manufacturing, retail, dealership and public sectors.

Jakob H. Kraglund will remain in his role as CEO of TARGIT during the transition to Forterro, after which he will be leaving the company.

Forterro is acquiring TARGIT from GRO Capital, a Northern European private equity firm with an exclusive focus on B2B software companies. The transaction is expected to complete on 08 July 2025.

GuidePoint Security and FAIR Institute Release 2025 State of Cyber Risk Management Report

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 26, 2025 by itnerd

GuidePoint Security released a 2025 State of Cyber Risk Management (CRM) Report, revealing that CRM has evolved from a siloed compliance function into a strategic discipline that informs executive decision-making.

Key findings include:

  • Quantification has gone mainstream. Factor Analysis of Information Risk (FAIR) and cyber risk quantification (CRQ) are gaining momentum. Nearly 45% of organizations use or plan to use FAIR. Among adopters, 90% report success. 
  • Automation, AI, and data are foundational. 72% of organizations have mostly or completely automated their CRM systems, and 48% are utilizing AI for CRM. Both CRM automation and the use of AI are strongly correlated with maturity and improved outcomes.
  • Demand for CRM is growing, especially for those with mature programs. Nearly all (95%) respondents said internal demand for CRM is growing. Among those reporting high or very high CRM maturity, 23% indicate that demand will increase significantly. 

You can get more details here:  guidepointsecurity.com/resources/2025-state-of-cyber-risk-management-report

Landmark report spotlights Switzerland’s rise as a global leader in Deep Tech where startups are driving $100B in value

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 26, 2025 by itnerd

While global attention has often centered on innovation hubs such as Silicon Valley, Berlin, or Paris, today, fresh data from Dealroom.co and Startupticker in a new report spotlights how Switzerland has quietly become one of the world’s most advanced and efficient Deep Tech ecosystems. 

The Swiss Deep Tech Report 2025, a Deep Tech Nation Switzerland initiative, offers a comprehensive new dataset and analysis on the Swiss Deep Tech ecosystem. It was curated in close collaboration with Dealroom.co, Startupticker and venture capital firms Founderful and Kickfund. The report is the first of its kind to map the full scope of Switzerland’s Deep Tech performance – from research institutions and patents to venture activity and late-stage outcomes. 

The report’s findings are striking: 

  • Swiss Deep Tech companies have created more than $100 billion in combined enterprise value.
  • From 2019 to 2025, Switzerland allocated 60% of its total venture capital into Deep Tech – more than any other country globally. 
  • Over the same period, Switzerland ranked first in Europe and third worldwide for Deep Tech VC funding per capita, backed by both a strong domestic research base and increasing levels of international capital. 
  • Nearly 96% of late-stage Deep Tech rounds in Switzerland were led by global investors, with US and EU firms now accounting for the majority of capital inflow. 
  • Behind Oxford and Cambridge, 2 of the top 4 universities creating Deep Tech spinouts in Europe are Swiss: ETH Zurich and  EPFL 

The report establishes a definitive benchmark for the ecosystem’s strength and signals its global potential. With over 1500 Swiss Deep Tech startups analyzed and data spanning more than five years, the report positions Switzerland not just as a center of academic excellence, but as a global-scale producer of science-based innovation and venture outcomes.

The report also highlights a new generation of Swiss startups driving that shift. AI/ML already accounts for 23 percent of companies founded since 2021, almost double its previous share. Climate & Energy, Robotics and TechBio have each expanded at speed.. The strength of this cohort reflects a deeper pipeline forming at the intersection of academic excellence, local entrepreneurial talent, and increasing support from sector-focused investors.

The international visibility of these startups is growing rapidly, but local capital – particularly at the later stages – remains limited, creating both a challenge and an investment opportunity.

Investors are reallocating capital toward the next wave of AI-powered verticals. In 2024 almost one-third of all Swiss deep-tech funding went to AI-first startups, from generative protein design and industrial autonomy to foundation-model safety, tripling the share recorded in 2020. This funding surge is matched by a rising cohort of growth-stage companies such as Scandit, Distalmotion and Climeworks, underscoring Switzerland’s ability to turn lab breakthroughs into mission-critical products for Fortune 500 customers.

As Switzerland’s Deep Tech ecosystem matures, the report authors plan to deepen the dataset and track sector performance across key hubs including Zurich, Lausanne, Geneva, and Basel. As more Swiss Deep Tech startups reach scale, the goal is to give founders, investors, and policymakers a reliable view of progress – and a strong case for the country’s leadership in Deep Tech.

The full report is available for download here: https://deeptechnation.ch/resources/swiss-deep-tech-report-2025 

Bonfy.AI Launches from Stealth to Guard Against GenAI Risks with Adaptive Content Security Platform

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 26, 2025 by itnerd

Bonfy.AI, the pioneer in adaptive content security, announced today its emergence from stealth mode with its Bonfy Adaptive Content Security™ (Bonfy ACS™) unified platform. Founded by security industry veterans Gidi Cohen and Danny Kibel, Bonfy secured $9.5 million in 2024 in seed funding led by TLV Partners, with participation by Saban Capital Group, and is set to optimize how AI and human-generated content is monitored and protected, differentiating itself by using AI-powered business context and business logic to accurately prevent exposures such as oversharing, IP leakage, privacy violations, and non-compliant communications.

Customers use Bonfy’s proprietary AI-powered technology to analyze and manage content risks associated with AI tools such as ChatGPT and Microsoft 365 Copilot, documents, emails, and communications such as Slack, while eliminating the overwhelming volume of false positives and enormous blind spots (false negatives) associated with traditional data loss prevention (DLP) tools.

According to the Gartner 2025 Market Guide for Data Loss Prevention, Gartner emphasizes that today’s Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions must move beyond traditional content inspection to effectively address the complexities of modern data security. In fact, “70% of CISOs in larger enterprises will adopt a consolidated approach to address both insider risk and data exfiltration use cases.” This means understanding the full context of data interactions or data creation, generation, and sharing to ensure the safe use of AI technologies.

Bonfy meets these evolving demands head-on, offering a next-generation DLP alternative that delivers the contextual intelligence, behavioral analytics, and adaptive remediation capabilities identified by Gartner as essential. Designed for the detection and prevention of content risks at rest, in use, and in motion, Bonfy ACS is agnostic to any sort of human readable content or unstructured data, generation techniques, underlying models, and human edits, making it versatile for various applications, including SaaS (e.g., Microsoft 365 Copilot), Shadow AI, and custom applications.

Bonfy ACS is purpose built to keep AI-generated content safe and compliant, enabling organizations to build trust and confidence with their customers and team members. Acting as a guardian AI, Bonfy ACS enforces communication and sharing policies and mitigates risks related to cybersecurity, privacy, compliance, IP protection, and reputation in a faster, streamlined, and more accurate way than legacy data security and compliance technologies can handle by using business context, derived from information contained in CRMs, IAMs, and business applications, and business logic, derived from out-of-the box policies such as GDPR, PCI, HIPAA, CCPR, and user-defined polices,as inputs. It is an ideal solution for any organization implementing GenAI initiatives, especially regulated and security-conscious verticals such as healthcare, insurance, finance, legal, media, and technology.

Bonfy ACS leverages patent-pending, AI-enabled technology that uses business context and logic to accurately detect risks in any content or unstructured data without relying on error-prone pattern matching or generic classifiers.

Bonfy ACS supports various use cases, such as:

  • Analyzing emails, including attachments, and other communications for confidential or sensitive data—such as trade secrets, intellectual property, employee login credentials or customer account information that could lead to a data leakage—before they are sent externally.
  • Monitoring content output from Microsoft 365 Copilot and other GenAI and SaaS applications to ensure it meets data security policies.
  • Providing the necessary data security controls to implement AI governance requirements to address risks such as bias, privacy infringement, and misuse.

Key Capabilities of Bonfy ACS:

  • Detects and prevents content risks at rest, in motion, and in use.
  • Supports various SaaS applications and communication platforms such as HubSpot, Google Mail, Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Slack, and SMTP.
  • Uses auto-learning for business context creation and entity-aware analysis.
  • Provides out-of-the-box policies for best practices and regulations.
  • Integrates with incident response platforms and notification systems.
  • Offers executive visibility through customizable dashboards.
  • Delivery: SaaS; Flexible hosting options.

Learn more about Bonfy at bonfy.ai.

A Toronto-based Teacher Turned a Small-scale Environmental Project into a Board-wide Climate Initiative with a $25,000 grant, in partnership with the City of Toronto

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 25, 2025 by itnerd

Twenty-three student-led initiatives from 17 schools within the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) have been chosen to receive a $25,000 Youth Climate Action Grant, in partnership with the City of Toronto. This provides funding to student-led projects, activities and events that educate and engage students, families and/or community members on climate actions; help Toronto achieve its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goals by 2030; and align with the TransformTO Net Zero Strategy for net-zero emissions by 2040.

This is the first year that the TCDSB will receive $25,000 in funding for projects focusing on conservation, sustainable practices and other topics like climate change, an effort led by Bruno Pileggi, a Science, Social Studies and ECO Schools Resource Teacher for K-12 at the TCDSB, in collaboration with Nelson Education, Canada’s leading education content provider.

A three-part process, stage 1 (ideation) and stage 2 (budget proposal) have now been completed. These projects are currently in stage 3: final development and execution. The culmination of the projects – either via an open house, video showcase or an event – has been taking place throughout the month of June.

For each of the projects, Nelson has provided educators with relevant resources on Edwin (its digital learning platform) for foundational and contextual learning on the chosen topics.

How did this initiative come about?

Nelson first worked with Bruno on an EcoArtivism project in 2023 which allowed students to do a deep-dive into an environmental issue. Selected students were introduced to digital content available on Edwin so they could learn, interpret, act and share the learnings. Students were invited to take that knowledge and create an art piece using recyclable materials to tell a story about what they learned. They shared and presented their creation through an EcoArt Expo with other students, teachers and community members. (See video here: https://www.edwin.app/tcdsb-a-district-transformation.)

Bruno was excited to see a cross-curricular approach (math, language arts, social studies, science, after-school clubs, etc.) by teachers, allowing students to share and celebrate their work. The project also focused on helping students develop transferrable skills and 21st century competencies that supported creativity, problem-solving, communications and collaboration. Many students with special needs participated in the initiative. 

The EcoArtivism project—co-created and developed in partnership with Edwin and the TCDSB—planted the seed for a powerful cross-board educational experience. What began as a creative collaboration has grown into a transformative initiative, empowering students to think critically about climate change and take meaningful action.

Building on the momentum of EcoArtivism, the TCDSB received a $25,000 Youth Climate Action Grant, in partnership with the City of Toronto.

This new environmental initiative highlights student leadership, environmental stewardship, and our collective responsibility to care for the planet. To deepen and extend the learning, each approved project incorporated Edwin lessons.

The Youth Climate Action Grants support student-led projects that:
– Educate and engage peers, families, and communities around climate action
– Contribute to Toronto’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030
– Align with the TransformTO Net Zero Strategy, aimed at achieving net-zero emissions by 2040

This integration offered students and teachers greater insight into the topics they were exploring, fostering innovation and real-world connections. From wild bee hotels to clothing fix-it cafés, students addressed diverse themes such as sustainability, biodiversity, responsible consumption, ecomobility, and urban agriculture. Central to every project was a profound respect for Mother Earth and an appreciation of Indigenous Ways of Knowing, which grounded the learning in connection, reciprocity, and care.

Project Details – Project descriptions for all projects can be found here.

For more information on Nelson’s digital learning platform, Edwin, visit: https://edwin.app/.

Targus VersaVu Keyboard Cases for iPad are here

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 25, 2025 by itnerd

Targus today announced the availability of its new VersaVu Bluetooth Keyboard Cases in North America and EMEA. These versatile, slim keyboard cases are made to upgrade the latest iPad models to a laptop-like experience, while keeping them protected.

Combining laptop-like functionality with practical protection, the VersaVu Bluetooth Keyboard Cases boast various, standout features like patented 360-degree rotation for seamless portrait and landscape viewing, an adjustable kickstand for comfortable typing, viewing, sketching, and reading angles, a full QWERTY backlit keyboard with large multi-touch trackpad and media keys, and mil-spec drop-rated protection made from high-quality materials and components. All three cases pass MIL-STD 810G to ensure they can protect iPads from drops up to four feet.

The VersaVu Bluetooth Keyboard Cases are designed to fit the latest iPad models including:

  • THZ967US, a multi-gen model for iPad Air (M2) 11-inch, iPad (10th gen) 10.9-inch, iPad Air (5th and 4th gen.) 10.9-inch & iPad Pro (4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st gen.) 11-inch
  • THZ988US for iPad Pro® 11-inch (M4)
  • THZ989US for iPad Pro 13-inch (M4)

Head to Targus.com for additional product details, pricing, and availability.

KnowBe4 Collaborates With Microsoft to Strengthen Email Security Through Strategic Integration

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 25, 2025 by itnerd

KnowBe4 today announced a strategic integration with Microsoft to strengthen email security. As the first initiative in Microsoft’s ICES (Integrated Cloud Email Security) vendor ecosystem, this integration establishes a blueprint for how leading security vendors can work together to deliver enhanced protection for mutual customers.

Created specifically to complement Microsoft 365’s existing email security, KnowBe4 Defend brings agentic AI approaches to advanced inbound threat detection capabilities that complement and enhance Microsoft’s native protections. The integration allows organizations to maintain their existing Microsoft security investments while adding an additional layer of specialized threat detection and response. 

The integration between KnowBe4 Defend and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 creates multiple layers of analysis and detection, significantly increasing the likelihood of identifying and stopping threats before they reach end users. It also provides unified tools for SOC tools for rapid investigation, root cause analysis and tactical response. 

For more information on this new collaboration, read their blog.

BREAKING: Rogers Seems To Have A Massive Outage [UPDATE: Fixed]

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 25, 2025 by itnerd

As I am typing this, I am getting flashbacks to the major Rogers outage from a few years ago because Rogers has some sort of outage that is ongoing based on this from Down Detector:

Browsing the Rogers sub Reddit shows users who have been affected by this outage. Not everywhere is affected, but a lot of people are affected. Rogers hasn’t commented on this outage, but they need to as this is clearly widespread.

More info as it comes.

UPDATE: This appears to be fixed or on the way to being fixed based on comments that I am seeing on the Rogers sub Reddit. I haven’t found an explanation from Rogers as to why and what happened. But they need to say something as given their past problems, Canadians will be none too happy with them.

A Flashpoint Report Covers How AI Is Reshaping Threat Intelligence for Both Attackers and Defenders

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 25, 2025 by itnerd

Today, threat intelligence firm Flashpoint released a new report titled AI and Threat Intelligence: The Defender’s Guide. Between January 1 and May 30, 2025, Flashpoint analysts observed more than two and a half million AI-related posts: jailbreak prompts, deepfake service ads, phishing toolkits, and bespoke language models built for fraud and cybercrime. For security and intelligence teams, the question isn’t just how AI is being used—it’s how that activity changes their own risk assessments, workflows, and priorities.

Developed to help practitioners understand how AI is reshaping threat intelligence for both attackers and defenders, the guide looks to help answer:

  • What should cybersecurity leaders be asking themselves right now?
  • Where does AI create real opportunity? 
  • Where does it introduce risk or operational blind spots? 
  • And how can defenders adopt AI without getting swept up in the hype?

Additionally, the report includes the below topics:

  • Adversarial Innovation: How Threat Actors Are Evolving with AI
  • The Defender’s AI Advantage: How Security Teams Are Responding
  • Myth vs. Reality: Cutting Through the Noise on AI in Threat Intelligence
  • The Bigger Picture: Strategic Takeaways for Security and Intelligence Leaders
  • What Comes Next: Turning Intelligence + AI Into Action
  • Glossary: AI and Threat Intelligence Terms to Know

The report also includes findings on the following:

  • The top observed 10 malicious LLMs
  • AI advertisements on Telegram
  • Prompt engineering as a service 

The Flashpoint team posted a blog post about the report here.

DMZ Insiders powers rising tech startups with $155,000 CAD in funding during Toronto Tech Week

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 25, 2025 by itnerd

As part of Toronto Tech Week, DMZ hosted its exclusive startup showcase, DMZ Insiders, featuring a selection of its most promising portfolio companies. Startups had the chance to pitch their businesses in front of a curated audience of investors, corporate leaders and DMZ’s global partners.

The event arrived at a landmark moment for DMZ, as the incubator and startup ecosystem celebrates 15 years of entrepreneurship support and marks one year since the launch of DMZ Ventures’ investment fund.

The live pitch lineup at DMZ Insiders included Kelsey Hahn, Co-Founder and CEO of Monark; Julian D’Angelo, Co-Founder and CEO of Talin; Stephen McCabe, Co-Founder and CEO of QuickCasa; Lynn Banks, Founder and CEO of NextGen Sound; and Natalia Bakaeva, Co-Founder and CEO of ARKI

NextGen Sound, an AI-driven platform transforming marketing for creators and brands, secured the top spot—earning a $150,000 investment from DMZ Ventures.

This year’s DMZ Insiders introduced a $5,000 People’s Choice Award, voted on by the community. ARKI, an AI tool enhancing design workflows through smart reuse of past project data, earned the crowd’s vote and took home the cash prize from DMZ.

Since publicly launching at DMZ Insiders in 2024, the DMZ Ventures Fund has invested in promising early-stage startups, including Leasey AIFlowjinFibra and more. With a focus on inclusive innovation, the fund has supported founders from across Canada — including women entrepreneurs and newcomers — all demonstrating strong early momentum.

Earlier in the week, DMZ partnered with BetaKit to host “The Most Ambitious Launch Party”, an event celebrating its 15th anniversary and the launch of BetaKit’s Most Ambitious issue. To date, DMZ has supported 2450+ startups in raising $2.95 billion in capital and has created over 25,000 jobs.