On June 24, 2026, the EY Scale-up Award was presented for the fifth time in Austria — and zerothird took home the title of Scale-up of the Year in the category "Disruption & Innovation".

More than 330 companies submitted applications for this year's award. A panel of 87 independent jurors evaluated each applicant across six dimensions — from business model and go-to-market strategy to financials, governance, and organizational structure — in a multi-stage process that included the Growth Maturity Assessment, benchmarking, and live pitch presentations.

zerothird emerged from this process as the recognized leader in its category. Our CEO Felix Tiefenbacher and CFO Christoph Thaler accepted the award on behalf of the entire team.

The award was presented across 13 categories and four future-oriented clusters — Planet, Human, Technology, and Innovation — with zerothird winning in "Disruption & Innovation." Other category winners included fiskaly (Software & Digital Transformation), UpNano (Industry & DeepTech), enspired (Energy), and AURIMOD (BioTech & Health). The overall Scale-up of the Year title went to fiskaly; factorymaker was named Rising Star of the Year. A new special prize — "Founder of the Year" — was awarded for the first time to Denise Hirner, co-founder of UpNano.

zerothird was also recognized in the "Spin-off of the Year" special category, underscoring the depth of scientific credibility behind our technology and its origins in Nobel Prize-winning research on quantum entanglement.

This recognition, alongside our live pilot with Erste Group and A1 Telekom Austria and our recently completed Seed+ round led by VERBUND X Ventures, confirms that quantum-secure infrastructure is no longer a theoretical ambition — it is an operational commitment.

We remain focused on what brought us here: building and operating quantum-resilient infrastructure that safeguards the confidentiality and integrity of critical systems, for decades.