How we are funded

Operating company

The wiki and the NIS 2 platform are operated by Kardashev Catalyst UG (haftungsbeschränkt), incorporated on 11 March 2026 in Germany. The UG is co-owned by its two founders (Simon Orzel and Cory Hisey). No external shareholders, no VC investment.

Revenue today (2026)

The platform itself is free. We currently fund operations through founder savings plus three early income lines: affiliate revenue from training partners (paid by the partner, never by readers), referral fees from a hand-picked consultant list (paid only on closed engagements), and small consulting projects we take on directly when they advance the platform mission.

Revenue we have rejected

We have declined: VC term sheets that would require the wiki to gate content, sponsored-content offers from GRC tool vendors, and paid placement requests from law firms.

Why free

The mission is to halve Europe's NIS 2 compliance bill. Gatekeeping information behind a paywall would defeat that mission. We monetise adjacent services (training partnerships, consultant lead routing, eventual self-hostable enterprise tier) while keeping the wiki itself open.

Public funding applications

We have applied to: Sovereign Tech Fund (open-source infrastructure), NLnet (open-source), Gründungszuschuss (German founder unemployment bridge). Awards and rejections will be logged here when they finalise.