EU TO AWARD SSH COMMUNICATIONS SECURITY CORPORATION €2M FUNDING FOR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

EU TO AWARD SSH COMMUNICATIONS SECURITY CORPORATION €2M FUNDING FOR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
The funding will accelerate PrivX® development and marketing and supports the SSH200 growth vision

The European Commission has notified SSH Communications Security Corporation that the EU has awarded SSH a funding of just over €2M for development, marketing, and go-to-market activities of the PrivX product over the next 24 months.

The funding is part of the EU's Horizon 2020 Programme (Horizon 2020 SME Instrument Phase 2) that supports innovative small and medium-sized firms. The program offers Europe's brightest and boldest entrepre­neurs the chance to step forward and request funding for breakthrough ideas with the potential to create entirely new markets or revolutionize existing ones.

SSH estimates that the funding will commence during Q4/2019 after customary preparations are concluded and the agreements are signed. The total budget for the project is approximately €3M, of which SSH's part of will be roughly €1M.

The funding will be recognized from 2019 to 2022, and it will be shown as other operating income in the profit and loss account. The funding will be recognized in alignment with the incurred costs. Approximately €1M of the funding is anticipated to be received already during Q4/2019 as the project commences.

The criteria for the funding are very tight, and less than five percent of Phase 2 applicants are awarded. The €2M awarded to SSH is also more than the historical average of €1.6M of the grants.

The EU evaluates the projects using three criteria: impact, excellence, and execution. Key considerations in the impact criteria are the scalability of the innovation and the potential to generate significant revenue. SSH and the PrivX product fulfilled all these criteria and also convinced an EU-appointed jury of international technology and business experts about the potential and significance of the PrivX product and the company in global competition.

The CEO of SSH, Ms. Kaisa Olkkonen, remarks: "EU funding significantly accelerates PrivX product development and also enables us to increase marketing investments for PrivX. The awarding of this highly sought-after and hard-to-win funding to SSH is a clear sign that also external experts share our belief that PrivX is truly a major cybersecurity innovation with significant growth potential. We are gratified that the importance of PrivX for the future of access management has now also been recognized by the EU. This funding is a concrete step on our road to secure the funding and necessary resources to fulfill our SSH200 growth vision."

The funding enables SSH to increase its product development and marketing investments and resources significantly and to meet customer needs even better. SSH will immediately start recruitments to strengthen its product development team.

SSH COMMUNICATIONS SECURITY CORPORATION

Kaisa Olkkonen
CEO

For further information, please contact:
Kaisa Olkkonen, CEO, tel. +358 40 5795216

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SSH Communications Security
SSH.COM helps organizations access, secure, and control their digital core – their critical data, applications, and services. We have over 3,000 customers around the world, including 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies, many of the world’s largest financial institutions, and major organizations in all verticals. We are committed to helping our customers thrive in the cloud era with solutions that offer secure access with zero inertia, zero friction, and zero credentials risk. SSH.COM sells online; through offices in North America, Europe and Asia; and through a global network of certified partners. The company’s shares (SSH1V) are quoted on the NASDAQ Helsinki. For more information, visit www.ssh.com.