CVentures, CIB’s VC arm has made an investment in MagicCube, the creator of the only Software Trusted Execution Environment platform. CVentures is joining a group of investors led by Bold Capital, Epic Ventures, Sony, NTT Data, Azure Capital, Visa Inc., and Luqman Weise Capital.

MagicCube is leading the Software Defined Trust (SDT) category with its software TEE-based platform. Co-Founders, Nancy Zayed and Sam Shawki, were constantly searching for a better way to secure apps and devices. The US-based startup enables large-scale deployment and management of IoT and mobilesecure solutions to consumers.

“We have been hard at work for the past two years developing an entirely new category in an industry where standards have been dominated by hardware,” said MagicCube Co-Founders. “We are delighted to see VC firms of large acquiring banks like CIB supporting the new paradigm of mobile and IoT device security that we call Software Defined Trust (SDT). As always, when software replaces hardware, everything becomes downloadable and upgradable, enabling the market to grow exponentially.”

Financial industry leaders are taking notice of MagicCube’s innovative approach in a space dominated by major hardware security vendors. MagicCube’s recent wave of funding reaffirms that software-based security is the future mobile of IoT device security at large.

“Hardware-based security has prevented banks and progressive retailers from trading archaic POS systems for modern, user-friendly consumer devices able to scan cards, digital wallets, and QR codes” said Shady Tadross, Director at CVentures. “We are excited at the prospect of working
closely with MagicCube, and look forward to supporting the founders in democratizing payment acceptance as applications secured by their unique SDT approach represent the next natural step for point-of-sale payments” he added.

In addition to securing funding from the venture arm of Egypt’s largest private sector bank, MagicCube also announced today the deployment of a joint product offering with areebaBank, the leading issuing and acquiring services provider to banks, financial institutions, merchants and retailers in the Middle East.

MagicCube is currently primed to disrupt the legacy payment terminals market. This is a $48 billion a year industry that merchants and banks are forced to participate in. With MagicCube’s technology, these businesses can now forgo buying and subsidizing expensive, single-function card acceptance devices. Instead, they can use apps secured by MagicCube to facilitate accepting point-of-sale payments.

After being named to Network World’s ‘10 Hot IoT Startups to Watch’ List. It was also heralded as a Cool Vendor in Security and Risk Management by Gartner, and is partnering with the PCI Security Standards Council. In 2019, EMVCo, the consortium owned by American Express, Discover, JCB, Mastercard, UnionPay and Visa awarded MagicCube the first certification of a software-based Trusted Execution Environment.MagicCube is positioned to lead the SDT category, disrupting the current dominance of hardware-based security.