The promise of confidential computing—encrypting data even while it's being processed—has tantalized security professionals for years. The catch? Most implementations demand wholesale application rewrites, the kind of engineering lift that sends enterprise CTOs running for the exit.
A Berlin-based startup called enclaive thinks it's cracked the code on that problem, literally. On February 3, 2026, the company announced a €4.1 million seed round co-led by Join Capital and the Amadeus APEX Technology Fund, with participation from Auriga Cyber Ventures. The pitch: enterprise-grade confidential computing that works with existing infrastructure, no re-architecture required.
"Our approach is zero code changes," said Andreas Walbrodt, who co-founded enclaive in 2022 alongside Professor Sebastian Gajek. "Enterprises have told us they need runtime data encryption they can verify themselves, but they can't afford to rebuild their stack."
Walbrodt comes to the challenge with fifteen years at IBM under his belt—most of that as a Sales Director—plus a five-year stint on the executive team at TÜV Rheinland i-Sec. Gajek, meanwhile, is a professor of IT security at Flensburg University and a former NEC Chief Scientist, credentials that suggest the technology goes deeper than marketing gloss.
The Multi-Cloud Tangle
What enclaive is solving for, specifically, is the security nightmare of multi-cloud deployments. Companies running workloads across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud face a thorny question: how do you protect sensitive data when it's bouncing between environments you don't fully control?
The company's flagship product, dubbed the enclaive Multi-Cloud Platform (eMCP), leans on hardware-based trusted execution environments to create what the industry calls "confidential computing" zones. The suite includes Buckypaper for confidential virtual machines, Dyneemes for confidential Kubernetes environments, and something called vHSM—a virtual Hardware Security Module for key management and attestation.
On February 5, SUSE certified that vHSM for operational efficiency on SUSE Rancher Prime, touting post-quantum readiness and pod-level isolation capabilities. A newer product, Garnet, positions itself as an enterprise firewall for compliant large language model interactions, a nod to the GenAI compliance headaches already keeping legal teams up at night.
The total disclosed funding now sits at €5.75 million, consisting of the €4.1 million seed round and approximately €1.65 million from earlier rounds.
Sovereignty Sells
For the investors backing this round, the sovereignty angle looms large. Join Capital, a Berlin-based early-stage deep tech VC, co-led alongside Amadeus APEX—a joint fund launched in 2023 by Amadeus Capital Partners and APEX Ventures to chase European deep tech opportunities. Auriga Cyber Ventures, which according to the firm's March 2026 LinkedIn post first invested in July 2025, doubled down in this seed round.
"In a world where the US CLOUD Act creates compliance headaches for European enterprises, enclaive offers cryptographic control that transcends jurisdiction," said Ion Hauer of APEX Ventures in the announcement. It's a pitch that resonates in Brussels and Berlin, where data residency requirements keep tightening.
Simone Lavizzari of Join Capital put it more bluntly: "enclaive's zero-code-change approach makes confidential computing accessible to enterprises that can't afford massive re-architecture." Translation: if confidential computing is ever going to escape the realm of well-funded tech giants and security-obsessed financial institutions, it needs to be easier.
Room to Run, But Crowded
The confidential computing space has seen steady investor interest lately. Anjuna, a U.S.-based player, raised $25 million in August 2024. Edgeless Systems, another European contender, secured €5.3 million in March 2023. The market is forming, perhaps faster than many expected—cloud providers themselves are pushing confidential computing features, which could either validate the category or commoditize it before startups establish defensible positions.
enclaive's 20-person team plans to use the fresh capital to accelerate enterprise adoption and expand its product suite. The startup holds memberships in the Confidential Computing Consortium, Bitkom, the European Champions Alliance, eco, and TeleTrusT—the alphabet soup of industry groups that signal a company is playing the long game on standards and regulation.
The accolades are piling up too: enclaive won the TeleTrusT Innovationspreis 2024 for eMCP and snagged the 2025 Prix Croissance from InCyber Forum. Awards don't pay the bills, but they smooth the path to enterprise procurement committees.
Whether zero-code confidential computing becomes table stakes or niche wizardry depends on how quickly enterprises feel the pain. If data residency rules keep tightening and multi-cloud sprawl keeps accelerating, enclaive's bet on simplicity might just pay off.
For now, at least, the investors seem willing to find out.
