Sitehop partners with Red Helix to accelerate UK-based testing of quantum-ready encryption

Sheffield-based start-up slashes test-time for its cutting-edge, high-speed encryption technology, providing benchmarks that demonstrate reliability and resilience for critical sectors

Aylesbury, UK – 30th July 2025 – Sitehop, an exciting UK startup redefining encryption for the quantum-powered future, brings advanced testing in-house and supercharges the critical speed-testing of its encrypted data transmission, with a Teledyne LeCroy Xena solution supplied by Red Helix, a market-leader in network and security testing.

With support from a five-figure Productivity Grant from South Yorkshire Mayoral Authority, Sitehop has invested in a state-of-the-art Teledyne LeCroy Xena Loki 100G traffic-generation and testing platform, which enables bi-directional testing of sub-microsecond latency in 100Gbps networks.

Bringing testing in-house has also eliminated delays and risks in export and customs, which included a minimum two-week turnaround at more than £18,000 per testing cycle. Previously, Sitehop relied on an outsourced facility in France, but the new UK-based set up enables them to complete testing in a single day, freeing the time of Sitehop’s engineering teams and boosting their productivity.

Sitehop uses the Xena Loki device to test and validate its superfast Sitehop SAFEcore platform, capable of 835 nanoseconds latency at 100Gbps encryption. The platform can support 4,000 concurrent connections, deploying crypto-agile encryption for use in sectors such as telecoms, financial services, government and critical national infrastructure.

Testing with the Xena Loki device covers peak load conditions, burst traffic, error injection and fault recovery, and end-to-end encrypted traffic flows. Multi-stream stress tests, mixed protocol environments and real-time encrypted traffic benchmarking are part of the rigorous processes.

The speed and accuracy of the Xena Loki platform enables Sitehop to validate latency, throughput, packet-loss and error-handling across different profiles. This is critical to prove the Sitehop SAFEcore platform has the necessary performance and resilience in high-bandwidth, low-latency environments and is ready for new use cases such as 5G backhaul, wearable security technology and the evolution of post-quantum cryptography.

“Testing in this way is a strategic enabler for us, accelerating product release cycles and reducing the risk of field failure while providing clients with higher levels of confidence during procurement,” said Melissa Chambers, co-founder and CEO, Sitehop. “This is a major selling-point for enterprise and critical infrastructure environments.”

Chambers added: “We are incredibly proud to be at the forefront of the next generation of British tech manufacturing and believe we are part of a resurgence of innovation in the UK. We are proving that deep tech, hardware innovation and cyber resilience can thrive here. As we expand globally and target high-assurance sectors, our ability to validate performance independently and rapidly becomes a cornerstone of our growth model. The grant we received has been hugely important, enabling us to bring a critical capability in-house that has accelerated our growth momentum.”

Baseline validation using the Xena Loki device is in line with the widely-used benchmarks RFC 2544 and Y.1564, ensuring consistent performance. In practice, however, the Sitehop SAFEcore solution frequently outperforms the scope of traditional methodologies, requiring custom profiles including simulated threat-scenarios, multi-session encrypted traffic under dynamic key exchange and adaptive stream-shaping.

Liam Jackson, Director of Technology Solutions at Red Helix, said: “We are thrilled to work with Sitehop, an exciting start-up company demonstrating that hardware-based security innovation is alive and well in the UK. Testing quantum-ready security platforms requires precise accuracy, reliability, and sustained high-speed throughput, which software-only traffic-generation tools can struggle to deliver. Sitehop understands this, and by harnessing the hardware-based Teledyne LeCroy Xena Loki platform, it hugely accelerates essential testing, gaining the speed, precision and confidence to bring its cutting-edge solutions to market faster – without impacting quality.”

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About Sitehop

Sitehop is a UK sovereign cybersecurity specialist providing hardware-first encryption solutions for securing data-in-motion. Founded in 2022 by CEO Melissa Chambers and CTO Ben Harper, the company builds high-speed FPGA-based, crypto-agile encryption platforms that deliver ultra-low latency security without compromising network performance. Sitehop’s SAFE Series solutions are live in Tier 1 carrier networks across seven countries, delivering post-quantum cryptography-ready security to large enterprise, telecommunications and government customers. The Sheffield-based company has raised funding from UK venture capital investors including Mercia and Amadeus Capital Partners. Engineered for speed. Built for the future.

For more information, please visit sitehop.com

About Red Helix

Red Helix is a leader in network test and test automation, with a 40-year heritage in helping network equipment manufacturers and major infrastructure owners to accelerate innovation. Formerly called Phoenix Datacom, the company adopts a vendor-agnostic approach to providing best-in-class test and test automation solutions with expert and unbiased guidance.

For more information, please visit redhelix.co.uk/technology-solutions

About Teledyne LeCroy Xena

Teledyne LeCroy Xena is a leading manufacturer of advanced protocol analysers, oscilloscopes, and other test instruments that verify performance, validate compliance, and debug complex electronic systems quickly and thoroughly. Since its founding in 1964, the company has focused on incorporating powerful tools into innovative products that enhance “Time-to-Insight.” Faster time to insight enables users to rapidly find and fix defects in complex electronic systems, dramatically improving time-to-market for a wide variety of applications and end markets.

For more information, please visit xenanetworks.com