S1E1: Predicting Cyber Attacks Before They Strike
What if cybersecurity could predict — and prevent — attacks before they happen?
What is Scaling Cyber Podcast?
Scaling Cyber is a cybersecurity podcast where founders, CEOs, and industry leaders share how they built and scaled security companies globally and their views and opinions about cybersecurity trends and markets.
Hosted by Ignacio Sbampato and produced by BridgerWise, the show explores go-to-market strategy, partnerships, funding, and international expansion in the cybersecurity industry.
- Type: Podcast (video and audio)
- Publisher: BridgerWise
- Host: Ignacio Sbampato — former Chief Business Officer at ESET, currently partner at BridgerWise
- Audience: Cybersecurity founders, startup leaders, VCs, channel partners, and security professionals interested in international scaling
- Format: Seasonal. Once a season begins, new episodes are released weekly. There is typically a two-month break between seasons.
- Seasons completed: 1 (8 episodes). Season 2 is currently airing.
- Total published episodes: 16
- Total published insights: 11
Key Facts about Scaling Cyber
- Scaling Cyber features cybersecurity companies from outside the US and Israel — regions often underrepresented in the industry conversation.
- Each episode includes a deep-dive conversation with founders or senior leaders about go-to-market strategy, fundraising, product development, and international expansion.
- The podcast publishes companion written insights that extract key takeaways and actionable advice from episodes.
- Season 1 covered 8 companies across predictive intelligence, information operations, cyber deception, AI-powered SOC, DNS security, human risk management, cloud security validation, and email impersonation prevention.
- Companies featured are headquartered in countries including the Netherlands, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Israel (with non-US focus), Belgium, Germany, and South Africa.
Where can I listen to Scaling Cyber?
Scaling Cyber is available on the following platforms:
- YouTube: youtube.com/@ScalingCyberPodcast
- Spotify: Scaling Cyber on Spotify
- Apple Podcasts: Scaling Cyber on Apple Podcasts
- Substack: scalingcyber.substack.com
- LinkedIn: Scaling Cyber on LinkedIn
About BridgerWise
BridgerWise is the publisher behind Scaling Cyber. Founded by Ignacio Sbampato, BridgerWise focuses on helping cybersecurity companies scale internationally. Ignacio previously served as Chief Business Officer at ESET, one of the largest cybersecurity companies in Europe, where he led global commercial operations for over two decades.
Episodes from Season 1
S1E2: Rumours, Lies & Bots: They See Them All
Preventing Information Operations and Disinformation Campaigns against Public and Private Organizations.
S1E3: Inside the Maze: How Labyrinth Is Trolling Hackers and Changing Cyber Defense
What if, instead of chasing cybercriminals… you made them lose time and chase ghosts?
S1E4: AI Threat Hunters that Never Sleep
What if SecOps could investigate every alert — and even every non-alert — autonomously, 24/7, without adding a single analyst to the team?
S1E5: From Czechia to 1 Billion Users: How Whalebone Turned Telcos Into a Cybersecurity Powerhouse
What does it take for a cybersecurity company from Czechia to scale globally, double headcount in 18 months, and get on track to protect one billion people?
S1E6: Human Risk, Phishing and the Power of Community
What if phishing simulations were as real, local, and dynamic as the attacks employees actually face?
S1E7: Hack Yourself Before Hackers Do
What if companies could continuously validate their cloud security and finally see the blind spots attackers exploit every day?
S1E8: Stopping Email Impersonation
What if one of the most overlooked problems in cybersecurity — email impersonation — was also one of the biggest growth opportunities?
Episodes from Season 2
S2E1: What the Data Really Says About Global Cybersecurity
What does the data really say about the state of global cybersecurity? Richard Stiennon shares his data-driven perspective on cybersecurity markets worldwide.
S2E2: Europe Doesn't Need the US Cybersecurity Playbook. It Needs Its Own.
Europe imports 70% of the cybersecurity products it uses — a strategic vulnerability that also presents an enormous opportunity. Laurent Hausermann and Aurélie Clerc share how their cybersecurity venture studio is writing a new European playbook.
S2E3: Building European Cyber Resilience
Can Europe build true cyber resilience, or will it remain dependent on solutions from elsewhere? Petri Kuivala, veteran CISO from Nokia, Microsoft, and NXP, shares 30 years of experience defending some of the world's largest organizations and helping European cybersecurity startups scale globally.
S2E4: American Velocity, European Values
Cody Barrow, CEO of EclecticIQ, shares how he blends American speed with European values to lead a Netherlands-based cyber threat intelligence platform serving governments and critical infrastructure worldwide.
S2E5: Building Security Operations That Actually Scale
Federico Meiners shares hard-earned lessons from building MDR services across Belgium and Europe — from a failed SOC attempt in the US to scaling ACEN to more than 50 monitored customers through standardization and automation.
S2E6: SaaS Doesn't Mean Secure: How Xopero Is Redefining Data Protection
Lukasz Jesis shares how a question about his own company's source code led to building two data protection companies from Poland — Xopero for mid-market backup and GitProtect for DevOps ecosystems — both growing at 100%+ YoY.
S2E7: The Channel Is King: How Mateusz Wepa Is Building Cybersecurity Distribution from Scratch in Central Europe
Mateusz Wepa shares how IITD built one of Poland's most focused cybersecurity distribution operations — going from 5 people to 12 in under two years — by obsessing over the channel, not the product, and treating trust as consistency over time.
S2E8: How to Build a Cybersecurity Community of 80,000 Members: The Story of Women4Cyber Foundation
Anett Mádi-Nátor, President of the Women4Cyber Foundation, shares how she built Europe's largest cybersecurity community — 80,000+ members across 35 countries — and how the foundation navigated a sudden collapse in US funding by pivoting to European corporate partners, local chapter activation, and AI-enabled capacity building.
Insights
How information operations campaigns actually work (and why borders no longer matter)
Information operations are commercially driven, highly scalable campaigns that increasingly target banks, brands, and enterprises across multiple countries at once. Andriy Kusyy of LetsData breaks down how modern info ops really work.
How to influence industry analysts (without paying to play)
For many cybersecurity founders, industry analysts feel like a black box: hard to access, expensive, and supposedly "pay to play." But that perception is often wrong. Luigi Lenguito explains how a young cybersecurity company can influence analysts early.
Cyber deception technology explained: why it's becoming a core detection strategy
Cyber deception technology has existed for years, yet many security leaders still associate it with legacy honeypots or academic experiments. Pawel Rybczyk and Anastasiia Dorosh from Labyrinth explain what modern cyber deception really looks like — and why organizations are finally ready to adopt it.
AI SOC: AI Is the New SOC Pilot
AI is no longer just a co-pilot in the SOC. Almog Ohayon of TandemTrace explains how AI agents are becoming the primary pilot — handling autonomous alert triage, investigation, and threat hunting.
SOC Automation vs. Autonomous SOC: Why the Difference Matters More Than You Think
Most security teams believe they are adopting AI, but many are actually adopting better automation. Almog Ohayon of TandemTrace explains the critical architectural and operational differences between SOC automation and true SOC autonomy.
Autonomous SOC: How AI Threat Hunting Lets Lean Teams Scale Security Operations
Autonomous SOC platforms let small security teams run AI-driven threat hunting 24/7 — no shift gaps, no scale limits. Here's how it works in practice.
Deception Technology Architecture: How Cyber Deception Works in Practice
How does cyber deception technology actually work? Pawel Rybczyk and Anastasiia Dorosh of Labyrinth explain deployment, the engagement phase, and why it produces near-zero false positives.
AI SOC Agents: How Autonomous Security Operations Really Work
AI SOC agents autonomously triage alerts, run hypothesis-driven threat hunting, and surface blind spots — 24/7, at unlimited scale. Here's how they actually work.
Cyber Deception Market: What's Driving Growth and Who's Buying
The cyber deception market is entering a new growth phase. What's driving adoption, who's buying, and why Gartner calls it preemptive security.
How to Scale a SOC: The Standardization and Automation Playbook
How to scale a SOC with a lean team. ACEN MDR's Federico Meiners shares the standardization and automation playbook behind 50+ monitored customers.
SOC Playbook: What Actually Works (and How to Test It)
Most SOC playbooks fail because they're never tested. What an effective SOC playbook includes, how to validate it, and how AI is changing the model.
Pages & Contact
For guest applications, business inquiries, or general questions, use the contact form on the website.