Berlin-based mobile security startup Kazimi has closed a €2.2 million pre-seed funding round to combat bot activity within mobile applications. Led by Market One Capital with participation from IBB Ventures, the investment will fuel the company's mission. Kazimi aims to help developers distinguish between genuine users and bots, thereby securing valuable first-party data.
Addressing a Growing Digital Challenge
The digital landscape is increasingly dominated by non-human traffic, creating significant hurdles for mobile businesses. According to Cloudflare, automated bot activity surpassed human internet usage for the first time in 2026. This trend is a primary driver of fraudulent activity across mobile channels, as highlighted in recent industry reports.
This proliferation of bots directly impacts the integrity of mobile marketing, a sector with a global ad spend of $419 billion in 2025. Malicious bots pollute the data signals that marketers rely on, leading to flawed analytics and diminished AI performance. This ultimately results in wasted resources and inaccurate business decisions for app developers.
A Privacy-First Verification Technology
Kazimi has developed an advanced "proof-of-humanness" security solution to address this critical issue. The technology secures all measurement signals from an app, allowing developers to verify their first-party data with confidence. This process effectively identifies non-human activity and separates real users from fake ones without collecting personal information.
At its core, the platform utilizes privacy-preserving cryptographic proofs to validate user interactions within an application. This innovative method ensures that data used for analytics, marketing, and AI is highly accurate and trustworthy. The technology is also designed to support compliance with stringent data protection regulations, making it a secure choice.
Experienced Leadership and Strong Investor Backing
The founding team at Kazimi brings a wealth of experience in mobile security, lending significant credibility to their mission. The founders previously engineered the security and fraud-detection systems at Adjust, a leading mobile measurement company. Their deep industry expertise has been instrumental in developing a solution that addresses a long-standing market need.
Strong investor confidence is reflected in the oversubscribed funding round, which attracted prominent industry figures. Petri Hyökyranta, former CTO of Rovio, praised the team's approach as a "paradigm shift for the entire mobile industry." Lead investor Jacek Lubinski of Market One Capital believes Kazimi can become a fundamental security layer for the app economy.
Future Plans and Market Impact
With the new capital, Kazimi plans to significantly scale its technology and expand its operational footprint. The company is focused on addressing the global market for mobile ad spend, projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2035. Its current clients include mobile gaming studios, rewards platforms, and various fintech applications.
The ability to differentiate between real and fake user activity has never been more critical as businesses increasingly leverage AI. By providing a tool to ensure data accuracy, Kazimi is not just fighting fraud but also enabling more effective business operations. This positions the company to make a transformative impact on how mobile businesses operate.
In securing this pre-seed funding, Kazimi is well-positioned to tackle the pervasive issue of bot fraud in the mobile ecosystem. Its privacy-centric technology offers a much-needed solution for developers seeking to protect their data and optimize marketing spend. The company's progress will be closely watched as it aims to establish a new standard for data integrity.