Surfshark launches €100K-a-year fund for cybersecurity advocacy projects
What's the deal? SurfsharkDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has launched a Cybersecurity Advocacy Fund worth up to €100,000 a year, backing students, researchers, and university groups. Rather than funding its own products, the VPN company is looking for ideas from classrooms, labs, and creative spaces. The first submission window opens in September 2026.
What's the endgame? The fund aims to bridge academic research and real-world impact, pairing money with collaboration from Surfshark's in-house experts. It backs three types of work: creative advocacy, academic research, and early-stage technological ideas.
Who's eligible? Applicants must be enrolled university students, employed faculty, or representatives of an officially recognised university group. Submissions are open worldwide but must be written in English.
How it works: The annual pot is distributed across multiple initiatives rather than to a single winner. The fund runs in two cycles a year, with September submissions reviewed in October and February submissions in March.
Why now? Scams have become one of the most common threats people face, and the first cycle names anti-scam work as a priority. Research from the Global Anti-Scam AllianceDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Feedzai estimates around $442 billion is lost to scams worldwide each year.
The origin: The idea grew out of "Bot or Not?", a Malmö UniversityDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → student project that found nearly half of participants could not reliably tell bot-written comments from human ones. Surfshark describes the fund as "an investment in expertise that sits outside our own walls," according to Gabriele Sinkeviciute, its head of product.
The signal: As threats outpace public understanding, Surfshark is betting that closing the awareness gap takes more than corporate tools. The fund pushes cybersecurity work into universities, where research and creative campaigns can reach people directly.
Read more: TechRadar
Image credit: SurfShark
