At 5:25 on a Friday morning, Sebastian Striban opened an email that changed the direction of his startup journey. His mother was beside him and his father was on the phone. Only the night before, after years of building, sacrificing, and questioning whether to continue, Sebastian had been preparing himself for a very different conversation with his family: perhaps it was time to stop.
Then came the email confirming that Proxima Security: Thynk Unlimited had been accepted into Qatar Science & Technology Park Fall 2026 Incubation Program. “The pressure and the stress lifted all at once,” Sebastian recalls. Sharing the moment with his parents made years of effort suddenly feel recognized. “Every sacrifice, every hour, suddenly felt seen.” For Sebastian, that morning marked the beginning of Proxima’s next chapter.
Making cybersecurity less intimidating
Sebastian began developing the ideas behind Proxima in his early twenties, driven by a question that continues to shape the company today: can sophisticated cybersecurity become easier to understand, manage, and access?
Most cybersecurity approaches, Sebastian explains, are reactive or proactive, responding to attacks or defending against known threats. Proxima is developing an AI and machine-learning ecosystem that aims to move cybersecurity toward a predictive model by continuously learning from attack strategies, anticipating potential threats, and providing real-time remediation.
The platform is also being designed to make cybersecurity easier to manage. Technical teams can access the depth they need, while CEOs and CFOs can understand their organization’s security position, risks, and costs without becoming cybersecurity specialists. Proxima is also developing tailored packages for startups, with the goal of making enterprise-grade cybersecurity more accessible while reducing its cost, time, and complexity.
There is no perfect moment. There are moments when you decide to feel ready.
Sebastian Striban
Building when stopping would have been easier
Proxima is now a five-person team, including three co-founders and two additional team members. Sebastian’s best friend, Luigi De Simone, became one of his co-founders, while his father, Vasile Stirban, joined as another, tying the company’s journey closely to friendship, family, and years of shared belief.
That belief has been tested. During one difficult stage, Sebastian traveled to London for an opportunity within the cybersecurity ecosystem. With limited resources, he slept at Gatwick Airport and changed there before attending the event. In June 2025, he attended the Parliament & Cyber Conference UK, organized by the Cybersecurity Business Network (CBN), following an invitation from a Member of Parliament.
Experiences like these shaped his advice to other founders: “If you’re here building something, it’s not by accident. Someone needs what you’re building: a person, a customer, a community.”
From an idea to an MVP
Today, Proxima is moving toward validation. The architecture for its minimum viable product (MVP) is in place, internal testing has been completed, and the team is preparing for its first pilot projects, potentially with startups within the QSTP community. Sebastian says the technology has also been reviewed by cybersecurity experts in the UK.
For Proxima, the next step is testing how the technology performs with real users, organizations, and cybersecurity needs.
Building roots in Qatar
Sebastian sees joining QSTP as more than entering another market. Proxima wants to develop its technology from Qatar, build relationships within the local ecosystem, contribute to cybersecurity capability and talent, and eventually use that foundation to reach other international markets.
Being rooted in Qatar means more than operating here. It means becoming part of the ecosystem.
Sebastian Striban
For Sebastian, that means building genuine roots in Qatar rather than establishing a conventional regional office. He sees QSTP as an opportunity for Proxima to test, learn, collaborate, and potentially conduct some of its earliest pilot projects while contributing to the country’s growing cybersecurity ecosystem.
Security with a wider purpose
Proxima’s focus on accessibility extends beyond its commercial platform. Through Proxima Academy, Sebastian wants to make cybersecurity education and certification more accessible, partly inspired by his own experience of encountering training opportunities that were too expensive when he was younger. The aim is to help more people develop cybersecurity skills while contributing to a wider talent pipeline for the industry.
It reflects a principle Sebastian wants to carry throughout the company: “Always build to bring value, not only services.” And perhaps that is why the email at 5:25 a.m. carried so much weight. For Sebastian, his co-founders, and the family that had stood beside him, it was a reason to keep going when stopping had begun to feel possible.
Sometimes, the distance between giving up and beginning again can be as small as one email arriving at exactly the right moment.
Explore the QSTP Incubation Program and discover how QSTP supports founders as they build, validate, and grow their startups.
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