KU Leuven spinoff Belfort unveils encrypted-compute accelerator and raises $6M

Encryption startup
Belfort, a KU Leuven spinoff, has closed a $6 million seed round to make
encrypted data processing practical in real time. The round was led by deeptech
investor Vsquared Ventures, with participation from Anagram, Protocol VC,
Inovia Capital, Syndicate One, Prototype, Credibly Neutral, and angels
including Jeff Dean (Google) and Naval Ravikant. The funds will support team
expansion, technology advancement, early enterprise pilots, and development of
a custom chip.

Protecting
sensitive data during processing is increasingly essential, not just at rest or
in transit. Belfort addresses this with a hardware accelerator purpose-built
for encrypted compute, enabling computation directly on encrypted data without
decryption and overcoming long-standing speed and cost barriers.

The technology is
available via AWS Marketplace and can be integrated with minimal effort across
healthcare, finance, and government. Practical applications include fraud
detection, genomic analysis, and secure government operations.

Belfort originated
from KU Leuven’s COSIC lab, led by Prof. Ingrid Verbauwhede, a specialist in
cryptographic hardware and a two-time ERC grant recipient. The company was
co-founded by Michiel Van Beirendonck and Furkan Turan, with Laurens De Poorter
(formerly Kraken Ventures and Google) adding operational leadership
experience. Its core research matured over several years through major grants,
including from the European Research Council, and a competitive US government
contract with DARPA.

Belfort’s view is
that in an AI-first world, encrypted compute is foundational to trust. By
combining advances in hardware and algorithms, the company aims to make
processing sensitive data without decryption practical at scale and to
establish the next layer of secure computing.

Michiel Van
Beirendonck, Co-founder and CEO, said:

AI is
transforming everything, but the infrastructure to keep sensitive data and
models secure hasn’t caught up. Encrypted compute is the answer, but without
hardware acceleration, it doesn’t scale. The company that cracks that challenge
could become the next billion-dollar business.

Belfort will use the new funding to double its team and accelerate
product, technology, and business development across its San Francisco and
Leuven offices.