Identeco

What Identeco does

Identeco is a German cybersecurity company that provides account takeover protection for businesses, headquartered in Bonn and founded in 2020 as a spin-off of the Department of Cybersecurity at the University of Bonn. Its core offering consists of five B2B SaaS products: Live Feed (real-time breach notification against customer accounts), Credential Check (real-time credential verification during registration, password changes, and payments), AD Protect (an Active Directory plugin blocking compromised passwords at login and reset), Leak Monitoring (no-integration threat reporting for employee accounts), and IDX API (programmatic access to its breach database). A consumer-facing free service called Leak Inspector operates as a separate sub-brand for individual email breach lookups.

The company's technical differentiator is a privacy-by-design architecture: identity data from leaks is automatically pseudonymized and anonymized before analysis and storage, so that even Identeco itself cannot easily decrypt plaintext credentials. This enables GDPR-compliant processing and aligns with NIS2 and BSI IT-Grundschutz requirements, which is a material procurement factor in the DACH market. The product stack is built in Rust, with the IDX API documented via OpenAPI/Utoipa. Identeco collects credential exposure data continuously from sources including criminal circles and dark web markets, accumulating a proprietary breach corpus since 2020 that the company claims protects "millions of customer and employee accounts."

Identeco sells through a sales-led, consultation-based B2B motion (book-a-meeting CTAs, free leak sample as lead magnet), complemented by API-first distribution for technical evaluators and trade-show presence at events such as it-sa Expo&Congress (Nuremberg) and CEE (Frankfurt). Revenue is subscription-based; no pricing tiers are publicly disclosed. The customer base spans diverse verticals including HR technology (New Work SE), retail loyalty (PAYBACK), fintech (Unzer Group), healthcare (ZfP Klinikum Schloss Winnenden), automotive engineering (EDAG), and cultural and religious institutions. The company operates with 6-10 employees and has been funded primarily internally plus a non-dilutive BMBF research grant (ProSBAcT, June 2023); no venture capital rounds are disclosed.

Name

Identeco

Legal name

Identeco GmbH & Co. KG

Website

https://identeco.de

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Identeco is a Bonn-based B2B cybersecurity SaaS provider, spun out of the University of Bonn in 2020, that protects enterprise customer and employee accounts from credential-based account takeover using a privacy-by-design pseudonymization architecture and GDPR-compliant breach-data monitoring.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Identity Protection / Account Takeover Prevention

NAICS

Security Systems Services (56162)

akta.pro primary industry

Fraud Detection & Prevention (payments fraud, account takeover, scams) (FSAGAFAE)

akta.pro secondary industry

Bot Management & Credential Stuffing Protection (FSAMALAG)

Keywords

• Account takeover protection
• Credential breach monitoring
• Identity threat intelligence
• Leaked password detection
• GDPR identity security

Headquarters

HQ city

Bonn

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Subscription-based SaaS: Identeco offers subscription-based access to its identity protection services. Products include Live Feed, Credential Check, AD Protect, Leak Monitoring, and IDX API. These are sold as recurring subscription services to businesses to protect customer and employee accounts from account takeover attacks.

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

Identeco sells a B2B account-takeover protection platform that lets organizations check customer and employee credentials against a continuously updated database of leaked data, while pseudonymizing and anonymizing identity data to remain GDPR-compliant. Products include Live Feed (real-time breach alerts), Credential Check (real-time verification at registration/login/payment), AD Protect (Active Directory password-change plugin), Leak Monitoring (no-integration employee account reports), and the IDX API (machine-readable breach lookups), with a free consumer-facing sub-brand called Leak Inspector.

Product overview

Identeco offers a suite of account security products designed to protect both customer and employee accounts from account takeover attacks. The core portfolio includes Live Feed (real-time breach notification), Credential Check (real-time verification during login/registration), AD Protect (Active Directory plugin), and Leak Monitoring (standalone threat reporting). The IDX API provides programmatic access to their breach database for enterprise integrations. A separate consumer-facing product, Leak Inspector, offers free email leak checks for private individuals. All products emphasize GDPR compliance and privacy-by-design with pseudonymization and anonymization of identity data.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Leak Inspector: A free service for private users to check whether their email address has appeared in a data breach.

Products and services

• Live Feed Real-time breach feed that gives organizations immediate access to compromised credentials from every new data leak, enabling them to test those credentials against their customer and employee accounts for instant account-takeover protection.
• Credential Check Automated, GDPR-compliant real-time verification of customer and employee credentials during registration, password changes, or payments against Identeco's leaked-credential database.
• AD Protect Plugin for Microsoft Active Directory that checks whether passwords being set or used during new logins are compromised, and prevents the use of leaked passwords for employee accounts.
• Leak Monitoring No-integration threat-status reporting service that delivers an instant report of compromised employee accounts so organizations can immediately identify and act on leaked credentials.
• IDX API Machine-readable API providing direct access to Identeco's breach database for automated, up-to-date checks of email addresses and domains for leaks, trash-mail indicators, and risk signals.
• Leak Inspector Free email-address breach-check service for private users that lets individuals determine whether their email address has appeared in a known data leak.

Quantifiable outcome

• Companies protected by Identeco meet BSI IT-baseline protection requirements
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments11 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

AI capability2 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Nine partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• StartUp Secure (BMBF)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 June 2023Research initiative of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) to bring creative IT security ideas from universities and industry into application. Identeco was suggested for funding and works with national research center ATHENE. Incubation hubs established at CISPA, ATHENE, KASTEL, and CUBE5.
• ProSBAcT ProjectcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 June 2023One-year funded project starting June 2023 under StartUp Secure BMBF. ProSBAcT stands for 'Proaktiver Schutz von Benutzerkonten durch Account Takeover' (Proactive protection of user accounts against account takeover). Project focuses on continuous matching of credentials against current database of stolen passwords, with encrypted and anonymized data storage.
• ATHENE Forschungszentrum CybersicherheitcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNational research center for applied cybersecurity in Darmstadt. Identeco networks with other cybersecurity companies through ATHENE as part of the StartUp Secure funding program. ATHENE supports ProSBAcT project and other StartUp Secure projects through workshops, networking events, and coaching with international trainers. Topics range from legal questions to marketing strategies.
• Bonn ConsultingminorOthersListed as a partner on Identeco's partner page. Nature of partnership appears to be consulting services.
• Bundesverband IT Mittelstand e.V. (BITMI)minorGTM or Marketing PartnerGerman IT SME association. Partner page listing suggests marketing and networking support for SME-focused initiatives.
• Cube 5 - Creating SecuritycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerBased at Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security and Faculty of Computer Science at Ruhr University, housed in Worldfactory Start-up Center. Supports spin-offs from research with B2B success prospects. Has supported Identeco since founding through network, trade fair participation, and event organization. Part of StartUpSecure and StartUpConnect funding programs of BMBF.
• mittelstand.digital.forumminorGTM or Marketing PartnerPlatform helping SMEs benefit from digitalization opportunities through events on digital topics, security in the cloud, e-commerce, Smart Factory, and Industry 4.0. Identeco participates as speaker, positions specialist content, and engages in events. Forum builds bridge between expertise and real-life use cases for digital transformation.
• Telekom Tech BoostminorGTM or Marketing PartnerDeutsche Telekom startup support program. Partner page listing suggests marketing and ecosystem access benefits.
• Transfer Center enaCom (University of Bonn)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerenaCom supports University of Bonn members from startup idea to transfer project in cooperation with business, society, and politics. Identeco is a spin-off of Department 4 for Cybersecurity of the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Bonn. enaCom supported Identeco during founding and first steps, providing networking opportunities with other startups, founders, potential customers, and investors through events like startup roundtables and matchmaking.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Emerging players

• Dashlane: Credential manager that has expanded into breach monitoring and password-health alerting. Overlaps with Identeco's AD Protect and Credential Check use cases at the end-user layer.

Direct peers

• Flare: External attack surface and digital risk monitoring vendor with strong credential-leak and dark-web exposure modules aimed at mid-market and enterprise security teams.
• SpyCloud: Enterprise-focused account takeover prevention and credential intelligence vendor with a breach data feed and API. Directly comparable to Identeco's Live Feed and IDX API offerings, with a heavier enterprise and international footprint.
• Constella Intelligence: Identity and breach-intelligence platform that aggregates stolen credential data from the dark web for ATO risk reduction. Comparable enterprise customer base and API-driven delivery model.
• Have I Been Pwned: Troy Hunt's breach-aggregation service that powers both consumer lookup and enterprise/domain-wide credential monitoring APIs. Closest behavioural peer to Identeco's Leak Inspector and IDX API products.

Broad incumbents

• WithSecure (formerly F-Secure): Established European cybersecurity vendor offering identity protection and breach-monitoring features within a broader security portfolio. Adjacent offering for regulated European enterprises.
• Norton Identity (Gen Digital): Consumer and small-business identity and dark-web monitoring offering shipped as part of the Norton/Lifelock suite. Adjacent competitor in breach-monitoring, especially for smaller customers.

Others

• DEFENDERBOX: German automated penetration-testing vendor that has already integrated Identeco into its stack. Go-to-market partner and a useful proxy for how Identeco embeds into adjacent German SME security tooling.
• heylogin: German password-management vendor listed as a partner on Identeco's site. Represents the consumer/employee-credential side of the same account-protection workflow Identeco enables.

Regional players

• Phished (Outpost24): European (Belgium) account-takeover and credential-stuffing protection vendor that has been integrated into Outpost24. Same core ATO problem and similar European enterprise customer profile.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/identeco_de
• GitHubgithub.com/identeco
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCqb_P0df_OWhYa9bVQhRoxA
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/identeco-we-protect-accounts

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Identeco