Berlin Startup Kazimi Raises EUR 2.2M to Fight Ad Bots
The Kazimi founders, Ville Mikkola (COO), Chase Gummer (CEO, Andreas Naumann (CPO), and August Joseph (CTO)
Berlin-based cybersecurity startup Kazimi has closed a EUR 2.2 million pre-seed round to tackle a growing problem in mobile marketing: bots pretending to be real users. As reported in a press release from IBB Ventures, the oversubscribed round was led by Market One Capital, with IBB Ventures and several mobile industry executives joining in, including former Rovio CTO Petri Hyökyranta, former Supercell data scientist Janne Peltola, and former Birkenstock Group and Sportradar CFO Erik Massmann.
Global mobile ad spend hit USD 419 billion in 2025 and could top USD 1 trillion by 2035, but fake traffic keeps messing with the numbers app developers rely on. Kazimi's technology secures the data signals apps send out, letting developers tell real users from bots while staying privacy compliant. The founders built their reputation at Adjust, the mobile analytics company acquired by AppLovin in 2021 for roughly USD 1 billion, and have since worked on security systems for other players across the industry.
The timing looks right. Cloudflare reported that bots overtook humans as the majority of internet traffic in 2026, and AppsFlyer's latest fraud report found bot attacks behind most fraudulent mobile activity. "The bot crisis in mobile marketing is the elephant in the room," said Massmann, now an angel investor in Kazimi.
The fresh funding will help Kazimi scale up and go after the global app economy, offering what Market One Capital's Jacek Lubinski calls a security layer built for the AI era. Clients already include mobile gaming studios, rewards platforms, and fintech apps, all chasing cleaner data and fewer fake users.
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