Partnerships

Partner with us

Two things live on this page and they point in opposite directions: how you can support Espilon, and what Espilon supports. We are an independent French non-profit, so both matter and neither is confused with the other.

You Espilon Support us

Become a 2026 founding partner

Annual commitments. Every tier is built on something we can actually deliver: real hardware, real labs, real visibility in front of embedded security people.

No partner yet

The first slot is still open

Espilon has no financial partner today, and we are not going to fill this page with logos we do not have. The upside is straightforward: whoever comes in first takes the 2026 founding partner status, the first CTF box carrying a brand name, and a partners page where that name stands on its own instead of sitting in a wall of thirty.

A young association growing fast: from 4 to over 30 active members in a year. Declared under the French loi 1901, non-profit, no intermediary between you and the team doing the work.

What a partner gets

Annual commitments, several formats. Here is what we deliver, grouped by nature. Which formats include what, and at what price, is in the prospectus below.

Visibility
  • Your logo on espilon.net and on the partners page
  • Mentions on LinkedIn and in the newsletter
  • Headline presence at the on-site CTF
  • An official certificate and public thanks
In front of an audience of embedded security people.
Recruitment
  • Your job offers relayed to the community
  • A presentation session in front of our members
  • A dedicated recruitment event
People who already do the work, not a job board.
Co-branded CTF box
  • A CTF box carrying your name, played in our CTFs
  • Naming rights on the box for the length of the commitment
  • Real hardware, built and maintained by us
A concrete asset in your name, not a promise.
Funded content
  • A full lab funded and open to everyone
  • Your name attached to what it teaches
  • Free access for the people who train on it
Something that stays online after the year ends.
Research & Development
  • Security audit of your embedded products
  • Custom Espilon modules and tools for your specific needs
  • Direct access to the research team
  • Deliverable and licence defined by contract
A scoped engagement, quoted case by case.
Hardware donation
  • Your retired hardware and IT reused for research and labs
  • Data-wipe certificate
  • Hardware Partner status
  • Public thanks
Gear you no longer use, put back to work.
Partnership prospectus 2026

Download the full prospectus

Six pages: what we do, who we reach, the available formats, what each one includes and the pricing. Same document in both languages, pick yours.

Rather talk it through first? We will take 20 minutes to build a partnership that fits your goals. Email us →

Your first 90 days

What actually happens once you sign

No waiting for an annual report to see something move.

Week 1

Kick-off: scoping and a dedicated contact.

Weeks 2-4

Your logo live and first mentions.

Month 2

CTF box in your name launched, job posts relayed.

Month 3

First visibility report.

Where the money goes

Lab and CTF hardware Server infrastructure Workshops Research and development

Non-profit association: every euro goes into the projects.

Espilon les événements What we support

The events we back

This section runs the other way round: here Espilon is the sponsor. Three events so far.

Two kinds of relationship, never mixed up: an event backed by Espilon, or an event Espilon simply took part in. Each card says which one it is.

Backed by Espilon
NileCTF 2026 Organised by the Cyber Phantoms team

Egypt's national cybersecurity competition for high-school students aged 13 to 18. Online, free, open to beginners, solo or in teams of up to four. Six categories: Web, Crypto, Forensics, Reverse, OSINT and Misc.

1000+ players expected 50+ challenges 48-hour qualification window

Figures announced by the organisers.

Online semi-finals 20 September
On-site championship 20 October

Espilon designs and provides the hardware challenges. The six categories announced by the organisers do not include hardware, so this is a track the event would not have otherwise.

nilectf.com → Discord NileCTF
Backed by Espilon
MindBreak 2026 Organised by ESGI students

An overnight on-site CTF in Paris, jeopardy format, in teams of one to four. It ran from 21:00 to 06:00 UTC on the night of 3 to 4 July 2026, at 242 rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

17 teams on the scoreboard On-site only 9 hours, overnight

Figures from the CTFtime event page.

Edition Night of 3 to 4 July 2026
Format Jeopardy, teams of 1 to 4

Espilon backed the event, was there on site, and supplied a series of three RF lockpicking challenges, where ESP32 boards played the part of the BLE padlocks.

Discord MindBreak
Backed by Espilon
DaVinciCTF 2026 Organised by DaVinciCode, the student team of Pole Leonard de Vinci

An on-site jeopardy CTF in Paris, in teams of four, run over a single day on 16 May 2026 at the Pole Leonard de Vinci in La Defense.

On-site only Teams of 4 9 hours, one day

Figures from the CTFtime event page.

Edition Saturday 16 May 2026
Venue Pole Leonard de Vinci, La Defense

Espilon backed the event and built its hardware track: physical ESP32 boards planted in the room and on our stand, attacked over BLE and Wi-Fi, from a flash dump to rebuilding an MQTT node's identity.

dvc.tf Discord DaVinciCTF
Beyond funding

Four other ways to collaborate

No budget involved. Pick the one that fits, or mix them.

Technical collaboration

Joint vulnerability research on embedded targets. Security analysis of IoT and OT products, code review, shared write-ups.

Research

Academic partnership

End-of-study project and thesis topics in embedded security: firmware analysis, RFID, BLE, protocol reversing. Talks at engineering schools.

Schools

Internship

3 to 6 month research internship in embedded and IoT security. Real targets, no toy projects. You get your name on what you find.

3-6 months

CTF & events

Challenge co-creation, co-organized IoT and OT CTF events, guest tracks.

Events
Founding partner 2026

Would you like to support Espilon?

No forms. Send an email with what you have in mind and we will take 20 minutes to build a partnership that fits your goals. Company, school or individual, it does not matter.