Netsec's $10M Bet: How a Single Operator Could Replace Your Entire IT Team

Jan de Vries · 2026-10-07

### The $10 Million Question: Can One Operator Replace a Whole IT Department? Netsec just raised more than $10 million in equity funding, and it's not just another cybersecurity startup. The company, based in France and Italy, is betting big on a simple but radical idea: mid-market companies shouldn't need to juggle a dozen vendors to keep their IT and security in check. Led by Paris-based Partech, with participation from Primo Capital and View Different (the investment vehicle of former Amazon executive Diego Piacentini), the round also attracted angels like Riccardo Zacconi and funds including Kima Ventures and Ithaca Investments. That's a serious vote of confidence for a company founded just last year. ### The Problem: Fragmented IT Is a Silent Killer If you've ever managed IT for a mid-sized company, you know the pain. You've got one vendor for device management, another for identity, a third for security operations, and a fourth for help desk. Each has its own portal, contract, and escalation process. It's a mess that slows everything down and leaves gaps for attackers to exploit. Netsec wants to replace that fragmentation with a single operator covering the full stack. Think of it as hiring a full IT and security team, but without the headcount. The service runs through Slack or Microsoft Teams and is priced per employee per month, starting at around $20 (€19). No tickets, no hourly billing—just a flat rate that scales with your team. > "Managed services have always scaled with headcount. Netsec breaks that link, pairing a single operator with automation that absorbs the volume work." — Réza Malekzadeh, General Partner at Partech ### What Netsec Actually Does On the IT side, Netsec handles mobile device management, remote monitoring, SaaS subscription optimization, and enterprise networking. But the real magic is on the security side: - vCISO-grade strategy and cloud security - 24/7 security operations and managed detection and response - Incident response with a median response time under 14 minutes - Compliance support for frameworks like NIS2, DORA, ISO 27001, and SOC 2 - Penetration testing The company says it can go live within a week by ingesting your existing stack, mapping gaps, and taking over the operator seat. That's fast—especially compared to the months it often takes to onboard traditional managed service providers. ### Why This Matters for European Startups Netsec's founders, Gianluca Varisco and Guglielmo Reina, aren't newcomers. They first worked together at Rocket Internet, and Varisco went on to lead security at Arduino and Italy's Digital Transformation Team before joining Google Cloud as a Principal Security Architect. Reina moved into tech investing at Global Founders Capital and 468 Capital. Together, they bring a rare mix of hands-on security experience and venture-scale company building. Incorporated in France as Barbican SAS and headquartered in France and Italy, Netsec holds ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certifications. With the new capital, the company plans to build out its automation and integration layer and accelerate growth across Europe and the United States. ### The Bottom Line For mid-market companies, the appeal is obvious: get the security and IT operations of a much larger organization without building it in-house. After just a year, Netsec manages thousands of endpoints for clients across Europe and the US. If it can keep that pace, it might just change how European startups think about their IT stack. And for the broader EU startup ecosystem, this is another sign that investors are hungry for solutions that make scaling easier—especially when they cut through the noise of fragmented services. Netsec's AI-native approach could be the blueprint for the next wave of managed services.