Aleksandr Abalakin

The European HealthTech sector is growing rapidly. New AI-powered diagnostic platforms, digital therapeutics, remote monitoring solutions, healthcare SaaS platforms, and patient engagement tools are entering the market every year. For founders, the focus is often on product development, clinical validation, fundraising, and customer acquisition. But there is another challenge becoming impossible to ignore: cybersecurity compliance. If your HealthTech startup plans to work with hospitals,...

We are pleased to share that Aleksandr Abalakin, Co-Founder and CMO/CCO of DefendSphere, recently gave an interview to CB Insights discussing cybersecurity compliance, AI, and the direction of the European technology market. The conversation focused on several key topics shaping today’s SaaS and startup ecosystem, including: why cybersecurity compliance is becoming part of the sales process, how regulations such as NIS2 and DORA are changing expectations for startups and SMEs, why security...

Why SaaS startups can no longer ignore NIS2 Most SaaS founders don’t start companies because they dream about cybersecurity policies, audit trails, or incident reporting procedures. The focus is usually product, growth, fundraising, and finding product-market fit. But for startups building cloud platforms in Europe — or serving European customers — cybersecurity compliance is quickly becoming unavoidable. The EU’s NIS2 Directive is fundamentally changing expectations around cybersecurity for...