Darren Mulvihill

Valarian builds infrastructure for organisations operating in high-trust, high-stakes environments. Our core product, ACRA, is a secure, compartmentalised backbone designed to run and protect mission-critical applications — now proven at the edge in portable GPU clusters as well as in the cloud and on-premise. We developed ACRA when existing infrastructure failed to meet real-world risk — where segmentation breaks down, audit trails disappear, and lateral movement cannot be contained. Valarian is a UK-founded and UK-led company, and backed by leading defence and national security investors. We are a homegrown team with backgrounds across defence, secure communications, high-assurance systems, and enterprise software — engineers and operators who have worked in environments where a lost signal or a missed audit can carry real consequences. We design like users because we’ve been them.

Founders Factory builds and funds startups together with exceptional entrepreneurs and the world’s leading companies. Created by serial entrepreneurs Brent Hoberman CBE and Henry Lane Fox, Founders Factory backs entrepreneurs with capital, operational support from a team of experts, and unrivalled access to leading organisations, including: Aviva, Rio Tinto, Vonovia, Fastweb, Mediobanca, HSBC, Pico Global, Hitachi, The Government of Western Australia, Enterprise Singapore and MSWA. Founders Factory’s Venture Studio co-founds businesses from inception, developing new ideas, technologies and business models into high growth companies. Our Accelerator backs early stage startups across industries and geographies - with a current focus on Fintech, Health, Industrials & Deep Tech. Since 2015, Founders Factory’s 450+ portfolio companies have secured 500+ pilots and commercial contracts with our partners.

Valarian builds infrastructure for organisations operating in high-trust, high-stakes environments. Our core product, ACRA, is a secure, compartmentalised backbone designed to run and protect mission-critical applications — now proven at the edge in portable GPU clusters as well as in the cloud and on-premise. We developed ACRA when existing infrastructure failed to meet real-world risk — where segmentation breaks down, audit trails disappear, and lateral movement cannot be contained. Valarian is a UK-founded and UK-led company, and backed by leading defence and national security investors. We are a homegrown team with backgrounds across defence, secure communications, high-assurance systems, and enterprise software — engineers and operators who have worked in environments where a lost signal or a missed audit can carry real consequences. We design like users because we’ve been them.

At Crowdcube, we believe in the power of funding with impact. Behind 20 of the most popular crowdfunding campaigns of all time, we are Europe’s leading equity crowdfunding platform — empowering founders to raise the capital they need to make a lasting difference in the world. Our platform provides an innovative approach to fundraising, connecting ambitious entrepreneurs with a vibrant community of investors who are passionate about supporting meaningful ventures. Having worked with the likes of Monzo, ZOE, Qonto, Heura, what3words and more, we want to help take your business to the next level. Risk Warning: Investing in start-ups and early stage businesses involves risks, including illiquidity, lack of dividends, loss of investment and dilution, and it should be done only as part of a diversified portfolio. Crowdcube is targeted exclusively at investors who are sufficiently sophisticated to understand these risks and make their own investment decisions. You will only be able to invest via Crowdcube once you are registered as sufficiently sophisticated.