Meet the 2025 Dare2Scale Cohorts – Sentry
33 founders from 18 companies across Bulgaria and the Western Balkans are joining Dare2Scale 2025 — united in one program to scale bold ideas and grow thriving businesses.
Meet Sentry – a cybersecurity firm delivering premium cyber offensive and defensive services, including AI Security Testing, AI Red Teaming, Penetration Testing, Red Teaming, Secure Code Reviews, and fully managed security for products and infrastructures.
Tell us how your story began. What was the inflection point that made you realize this could become a serious business, not just an idea?
The idea to build a cybersecurity company was born in 2015 in the small city of Prishtina. Back then, we were just four young hackers, driven, ambitious, and obsessed with technology. We didn’t just enjoy using it; we loved breaking it apart to understand how it worked.
With big dreams but limited resources, we set up shop in a tiny 15-square-meter office in Prishtina. It wasn’t even a formal rental. A family member believed in us, stepping in as an angel investor by offering the space for free. That modest room became our first headquarters. A place where we gathered daily to talk, learn, and build around cybersecurity.
At the time, our goal was simple: to provide cybersecurity services to local companies and, hopefully, expand to the regional market. The idea of going international felt distant, almost unreachable. Most of the local businesses we approached didn’t understand what we were offering, and many didn’t even take us seriously. If not for our deep passion for the field, we might have given up.
Everything changed when we met our first U.S. client.
Unlike the local market, where we constantly had to justify the value of cybersecurity, the mindset in the U.S. was completely different in the best possible way. They understood the risks, recognized the importance of proactive security, and were willing to give us a chance. Our first opportunity came through an annual penetration test. We poured everything into it. We didn’t just meet expectations—we exceeded them. The results spoke for themselves.
After the project, the company’s CEO personally reached out and said:
“You guys did a terrific job on our annual pentest. Would you be interested in becoming our subcontractor for penetration tests we do for other U.S. companies?”
That moment was our turning point. It validated what we had always believed: that we were capable of delivering world-class cybersecurity services regardless of where we came from.
Share a little-known fact about your industry, product, or market that would surprise most people.
The cybersecurity industry is relatively small in terms of the number of decision-makers and leaders driving the field forward. It’s a tightly connected community made up of professionals with deep technical expertise. In this space, there’s no room for pretenders; you either know your craft or you don’t.
Because the network is so well-connected, your reputation travels fast. If you deliver high-quality work, word gets around quickly, and others will be eager to work with you. But the opposite is also true: if you’re given a chance and fail to deliver, the industry will hear about it, making it significantly harder to earn future opportunities.
Five years from now, what headline would you love to read about your company?
Sentry becomes the Global Leader in Autonomous Penetration Testing.