In this episode of Tank Talks, host Matt Cohen sits down with Karl Holmqvist, co-founder and CEO of Lastwall, a FedRAMP-certified identity security platform built for the highest-risk use cases. Karl has been deep in cybersecurity since the 1990s, with early experience building critical infrastructure, including Canada’s first high-speed mobile data network, and a recent focus on identity security at the forefront of making systems quantum-resilient. In this conversation, they explore the evolution of Lastwall from early behavioral biometrics and cognitive signals to today’s hybrid post-quantum cryptography.
They also dig into the journey to FedRAMP approval and what it really takes to sell to the hardest customers on the planet, from the DOD’s Innovation Unit to critical infrastructure operators globally. Karl shares his view on why hybrid cryptography is the only responsible path right now, the magnified risk of the AI agent era, and his strongly held belief that when it comes to quantum resiliency, you’re either going to be too early or too late.
Whether you’re a founder navigating a path into regulated markets, a security leader thinking about the agentic AI era, or just curious about what it takes to protect critical infrastructure, Karl delivers a grounded, technical, and occasionally unsettling look at where identity security is headed.
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Karl’s childhood in Dubai as an expat during the Gulf War
Visiting the USS Nimitz and seeing 5,000 people living on an aircraft carrier
How jets overhead and allied ships shaped his early view of technology and defense
The BBS era and the thrill of finding information that wasn’t available to everyone
Why people thought mobile internet was “the stupidest thing” in the early 2000s
Building a data-only carrier when no one believed you’d want internet everywhere
The Nokia Communicator as his favorite tech gadget and early glimpse of mobile data
Connecting critical infrastructure and discovering default credentials left wide open
Finding a wastewater flow control valve dangling on the internet with admin/admin credentials
The “air-gapped” power plant where an engineer plugged his BlackBerry in to charge
How Shodan and friends revealed dams and power facilities publicly accessible
The founding of Lastwall: “Hackers will be everywhere. We’ve got to do something.”
Why 85% of hacks still use valid stolen credentials, the same as the 1990s
Early experiments with keyboard dynamics, mouse movements, and cognitive biometrics
Tracking Peter Shor’s algorithm since university and the IBM factorization of 15 in 2001
The 2017 to 2018 decision to embed quantum resiliency natively into Lastwall
Landing the first major deployment with the U.S. Department of Defense Innovation Unit
How DIU pioneered procurement that matches innovation cycles, months instead of years
The advice from Carbon Black founders: build the regulated stack first
Why defense tech used to shut VC doors and how times have changed
FedRAMP as the gold standard: do compliance once, reuse everywhere
The Canadian challenge: every agency doing its own security review
Why Canada should base its program on NIST 800 and harmonize with the U.S.
The reality of the integrated North American power grid and shared defense
Why 50 to 100 agents per human in 2 to 3 years will magnify damage exponentially
The OpenClaw lesson: agents do what agents do, not what you expect
The “YOLO” approach to AI deployment and why enterprises aren’t calling enough
Advice for founders: sandbox first, don’t connect your whole drive, go slowly
Raising BDC Capital’s Strong North Fund led by Major General (Ret.) Peter Dawe
The milestone of FedRAMP certification and opening the floodgates to U.S. agencies
Deploying in disconnected environments: field containers for critical infrastructure
Why defense is ultimately about protecting the economy
Karl Holmqvist is co-founder and CEO of Lastwall, an identity-as-a-service platform built on Zero Trust principles and public key infrastructure, hardened with post-quantum cryptographic resilience. Lastwall serves the U.S. Department of Defense and a growing number of civilian government agencies and critical infrastructure operators. Karl has been a cybersecurity enthusiast since the 1990s, with a background spanning telecommunications infrastructure (including building one of Canada’s first high-speed mobile data networks), renewable energy infrastructure across the Middle East, North Africa, and Southern Europe, and international investing. He studied at Mount Allison University and is based in Vancouver, BC.
Connect with Karl Holmqvist on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlholmqvist/
Visit Lastwall’s website: https://www.lastwall.com/
Connect with Matt Cohen on LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/matt-cohen1
Visit the Ripple Ventures website: https://www.rippleventures.com/
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