About Us | Company

From Silicon Glen to Silicon Valley

Approov is a team of passionate developers dedicated to making the future of mobile secure. From our offices in Edinburgh, Scotland (UK), and Palo Alto, California, we focus on developing the world’s most complete end-to-end solution for mobile app security from the device into the cloud. Our solutions are used worldwide to secure mobile apps and their APIs in everything from automotive, financial services, healthcare to e-commerce, gaming and media.

Approov is a privately held company backed by leading investors including Lanza TechVentures, Scottish Enterprise and Herald Ventures.

A History of Innovation

The company — founded as Critical Blue Limited — was formed in Silicon Glen to provide cutting-edge research and development in code optimization and microprocessor design technologies to the semiconductor industry. For more than 20 years, CriticalBlue has been providing advanced software capabilities to the biggest names in technology including Intel Corporation, Thales Group, Toshiba and Freescale.

Core Expertise in Binary Level Analysis

In the 2000s, our initial technology platform was built to perform static and dynamic analysis of ARM machine code to generate highly optimized processor architectures from profile-guided analysis. Binary-to-binary code transformation was then used to map code onto the custom architecture. Later, we enhanced this technology to perform binary translation onto fixed instruction set architectures while preserving vector single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) optimizations.

We expanded our dynamic code analysis capabilities adding support for numerous processor architectures including x86 and POWER with 32-bit and 64-bit instruction set. By expanding beyond instruction level dependency analysis, our interactive development environment enabled optimizations for thread level parallelism extraction from existing code. This was widely deployed to a range of customers along with technical consulting services for code optimization with a specialty in cryptographic accelerators.

Transitioning to Mobile

In the mid-2010s, several projects related to the optimization of the Android runtime system for specific 64-bit chipsets added compiler optimization passes as well as runtime library enhancements to our platform. Android runtime consulting, coupled with our prior binary analysis and security consulting, led us to develop the key technology components that became Approov. The first commercial release of Approov was in 2017. We now serve a wide range and growing customer base.

Our Unique Advantage

Our patented binary analysis expertise and technology platform enables us to develop highly differentiated technologies to ensure end-to-end mobile security.

We predicted an emerging security risk would come with the widespread use of APIs in the app economy and the vulnerabilities of mobile apps. Tampered apps and spoofed API requests have become an increasing significant business security challenge. Apps need a way to continuously identify themselves reliably to backend systems using more sophisticated techniques than API keys or other secrets embedded within apps subject to easy exploitation.

Leveraging our binary analysis expertise enables us to build the most advanced programmable and scalable runtime analysis engine capable of running within apps to provide real-time threat intelligence and runtime app self-protection (RASP).

We couple this with a SaaS cloud service and Real-Time Threat Analysis Dashboards to efficiently and securely partition the analysis between the client device and the server, providing our award-winning and breakthrough technology in application attestation. Unlike AI-based behavioral solutions, we take a deterministic approach that ensures the lowest latency, highest performance and most accurate results.

Ted Miracco, CEO of Approov

Ted is an experienced technology executive with expertise in cybersecurity, particularly in the mobile app and API space. He is the CEO of Approov Mobile Security, a prestigious cybersecurity firm based in Edinburgh, UK and at the forefront of safeguarding mobile apps and APIs from malicious attacks. Approov is renowned for its cutting-edge solutions that provide robust protection in the ever-evolving mobile threat landscape. Prior to his role at Approov, Ted co-founded Cylynt Limited, an anti-piracy and SaaS data analytics company, and played a pivotal role in the establishment of AWR Corporation, an EDA company that was later acquired by National Instruments in 2011 and is now an integral part of Cadence. AWR's contributions to semiconductor design for wireless applications are widely recognized. During his tenure, Ted spearheaded global sales, marketing, and the implementation of a highly successful license compliance program, ensuring the company's continued growth and success. Ted's extensive experience extends beyond established industry giants to include collaborations with Fortune 500 software companies such as Cadence Design Systems, as well as innovative startups like EEsof Inc., which was acquired by Hewlett Packard in 1994 and is now part of Keysight Technologies. This diverse background has equipped him with a comprehensive understanding of the industry's landscape from multiple perspectives. Ted holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering (B.S.E.E.) from Carnegie Mellon University, a testament to his strong academic foundation and commitment to excellence.

Japheth Hossell, CTO of Approov

As an expert software architect and engineer, Jae brings a profound understanding of computer architecture, algorithms, data structures, and systems design. Over two decades of experience have allowed Jae to master a diverse range of technologies and skills including novel architectures, embedded and mobile operating systems, compilers, virtual machines, desktop applications, and comprehensive full-stack cloud-based services. Jae’s app-security expertise has evolved over the last 10 years, as he has immersed himself in the app-security space to continually advance and develop the Approov mobile security solution.

Lucio Lanza, Board Member of Approov and Managing Director of Lanza techVentures

Lucio Lanza is the Managing Director of Lanza techVentures, an early-stage venture capital and investment firm founded in 2001, and the 2014 recipient of the Phil Kaufman Award for Distinguished Contributions to Electronic System Design. Lucio began his career in 1968 at Olivetti Corporation in Italy managing processor architecture and design.

From 1977 to 1983, he worked for Intel Corp., in Santa Clara, Calif., where he was responsible for strategy and innovation as chairman of the Microprocessor Strategic Business Segment (SBS). During that time, Lucio convinced the late Phil Kaufman and Intel management to co-design the first controller device for Ethernet with Digital Equipment Corporation (now HP) and Xerox.

In 1983, Lucio joined Daisy Systems Corp. as vice president of marketing and general manager of its EDA division and from 1986 to 1989 was chief executive officer of EDA Systems, Inc., (now HP). Formerly, Lucio was a non-executive director of Arm, the world’s leading semiconductor IP company, and chairman of the board of PDF Solutions, Inc., a provider of technologies to improve semiconductor manufacturing yield. He is also a former member of the board of directors of Harris & Harris Group, an investor in transformative companies enabled by disruptive science.

Lucio currently sits on the board of directors of several private companies. He holds a doctorate in electronic engineering from Politecnico in Milan, Italy.

Mobile App Protection Innovators