Between the AI Act and Growth: Why Secjur Is Scaling Right Now

Regulation is currently redefining who wins markets - and who falls behind. With the EU AI Act, NIS2, and growing complexity, compliance is becoming mission-critical infrastructure. Companies that fail to manage it efficiently lose speed - those that solve it systematically gain a clear competitive advantage.
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Secjur positions itself exactly here: not as a tool, but as infrastructure for compliance in the AI era that simply works in the background.
We spoke with founder and CEO Niklas Hanitsch about why compliance is being rethought - and why Secjur is moving now.

Niklas, you once described yourself as rather rebellious – and today you’re building a compliance company. How does that fit together?

Niklas Hanitsch: If someone had told me earlier that I would start a compliance company, I would have laughed. I used to be quite anti-establishment. But my motivation has always been the same: fairness. Over time, I realized that good regulation creates exactly that - it protects the environment, consumers, and companies, and ensures markets aren’t governed by the law of the strongest.

Today, I’m building exactly that – just not against systems, but by making them better and more functional.

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Why is compliance becoming a real competitive advantage right now?

Niklas Hanitsch: Many companies are not where they should be in terms of knowledge or implementation of the EU AI Act.
The AI Act is risk-based. Companies must document, assess, and continuously monitor their systems. Many are only starting now - even though initial obligations are already in effect and more requirements are imminent.

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The problem is: companies that don’t have compliance under control will slow down when it comes to AI or international markets - and lose competitiveness at a time when speed is critical.

Our role is to remove that uncertainty. When compliance is handled properly, companies can adopt new technologies much faster and more confidently.

We’re seeing a rare window where regulation and technology reshape the market - and we’re now building the product I envisioned from day one.

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What happens if companies ignore the topic?

Niklas Hanitsch: In the worst case, we’re talking about fines of up to seven percent of global annual revenue. On top of that, there is personal liability at the management level, for example through NIS2. That turns a “nice-to-have” into an existential issue.

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How do your customers experience this situation in practice?

Niklas Hanitsch: The first reaction is often a sigh – until it becomes clear what’s really at stake. Many come to us because a specific deal depends on certification. No compliance, no contract. At that moment, the topic becomes very real.

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The companies that solve compliance best will move faster than everyone else.

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Where does Secjur create real value?

Niklas Hanitsch: The key difference is that we don’t see compliance as a one-time project, but as a system. Requirements are interconnected so that implemented measures can be reused automatically.

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At the same time, we automate large parts of the operational work – from evidence collection to audit preparation. This makes processes up to 80% more efficient.
We increasingly see ourselves not as a tool, but as infrastructure – essentially an operating system for compliance. The result: compliance becomes scalable – and, for the first time, a true enabler for companies.

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You’re not alone in the market. Why do you win?

Niklas Hanitsch: We deliberately chose not to compete on price, but on substance. Many competitors have grown through aggressive pricing. That works short-term, but not sustainably. Our systems are designed to work with independent auditors – at the level of TÜV or DEKRA, the gold standard for audits in Germany. That means real on-site audits, not just box-ticking.

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Beyond quality, another factor is our speed of innovation. We’ve been first movers multiple times – in information security management, policy automation, and most recently ISO 9001.

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How do you know you’re on the right track?

Niklas Hanitsch: We’ve been growing steadily at a high level for months - and at the same time, customer perception is shifting.
We deliberately focus on SMEs – the backbone of the economy. That’s where the need is greatest.

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The key indicator is feedback: when customers tell us they can use AI because they feel compliant thanks to us, then we’ve done our job. That’s when compliance shifts from obstacle to enabler.

Success for Secjur is when compliance shifts from an obstacle to an enabler.

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You’re fundraising - why now?

Niklas Hanitsch: We could become profitable without major trade-offs - but the market opportunity right now is exceptional.
With new regulation and technological leaps, we see a window in which the market is being reshaped. And in moments like these, it’s decided who builds the infrastructure others will rely on. That’s why we’re investing now in the next product generation and further growth.

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What matters to you in working with investors?

Niklas Hanitsch: Eye level, trust, and real partnership. With Bloomhaus, we’ve found exactly that. It’s not just about capital, but about exchange and a shared understanding of the long-term vision.

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What can we look forward to next?

Niklas Hanitsch: We’re currently building the product I had in mind since founding – except the technology wasn’t there back then.
It’s about pushing compliance even further into the background – as infrastructure that simply works.

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Our vision is a world where companies are always compliant without having to think about it. And for the first time, we feel technologically very close to that vision.

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About Niklas Hanitsch

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Niklas Hanitsch is the founder and CEO of Secjur. The lawyer gained early international experience in the startup world – including in South Korea and at Taylor Wessing’s Menlo Park office in Silicon Valley, where he worked with US startups on European tech and data protection law.

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He later worked in Amazon’s legal department, focusing on GDPR topics.

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His path was anything but conventional: with a strongly anti-authoritarian, “rebellious” mindset, he questioned existing systems early on – today, he channels that drive into rethinking how regulation can be designed and implemented through technology.

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From the combination of technological understanding, legal expertise, and this shift in perspective, the idea for Secjur emerged: to rethink compliance as a scalable system.

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