Cambridge technology startup Bromium has ramped up from zero to 30 staff despite remaining in stealth mode – and it’s still hiring.

The recruitment surge reflects not only the $9.2m Series A funding garnered last summer but also confidence in what it believes could be a game-changing technology primed to crush hackers and cyber-saboteurs attacking global computing infrastructure.

Founded by Gaurav Banga, ex-CTO of Phoenix Technologies; Simon Crosby, former CTO of the Data Center and Cloud Division of Citrix; and Ian Pratt, chairman of Xen.org and also ex-Citrix, the business is still operating from Pratt’s house, which he adapted for the purpose.

With corporations and government systems under increasing attack, Pratt believes the software currently under his home guard will provide the perfect defence against future attempts at security breaches.

With operations in Cambridge UK and California in the States, Bromium is about to take flight with its second generation virtualisation product

Pratt previously told Business Weekly that he felt the opportunity for Bromium was greater than that exploited by XenSource by some magnitude.

He told Business Weekly after the fundraising: “Cambridge is going to be a very important development centre for Bromium. The pace of early growth will be dictated by the rate at which we can hire good people but that process is underway, we are pretty well funded and intend to continually ramp up the hiring process throughout the year.”

As SVP for Products, Pratt is leading the design from Cambridge while the sales and marketing will be handled from San Francisco.

He said: “The methods used by today’s hackers are increasingly sophisticated. You can search a system for clues but unless someone has hacked before and created a signature before you are not going to spot it. We have seen from recent instances that the traditional defences don’t work.

“We have turned the problem upside down and are creating a model where systems and practices are far more trustworthy and make a lot more sense to humans using them. If I download a piece of software to perform a specific function I want to control the situation and ensure it does ONLY what I have downloaded it for – and doesn’t go wandering off into other areas of my machine.

“Our technology imposes very strict procedures. It ensures that corporation or government data is looked after much more securely, resides where it should on the computing infrastructure and doesn’t get put where it shouldn’t be and is left vulnerable to attack. Data can be structured and tracked much more simply.

“Our technology isn’t just for servers but for laptops and smartphones; a much bigger market. Hundreds of millions of laptops are sold every year. We have some really novel technology and the CIOs we have spoken to have all said that if we build it, they’ll buy it. This is one fantastic global opportunity for Bromium.”

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Ian Pratt