Webcracy, the Losone software house that keeps data in Ticino

In the Locarno area there is a small company that handles on its own a job usually split among several suppliers. It is called webcracy SNC, has its offices in Losone and presents itself as a web agency and software house. It has been entered in the commercial register since November 2023 as a general partnership. There are two partners, Elia Di Lonardo and Liam Giannini, both with joint signing authority.

The range of services is broad for a firm of this size. Webcracy builds websites, online shops and web applications, develops apps for iOS and Android and writes custom business software, including interfaces between different systems and firmware for devices. To this it adds business process automation and artificial intelligence projects, described in practical terms: document analysis, chatbots and the integration of language models into programs already in use.

For a Ticino business the advantage is having a single contact, close by and easy to reach. The company sums it up this way: eight areas of expertise and one point of contact. The work follows five stated stages, from initial analysis to launch, and the corporate purpose filed in the register also covers industrial automation and cybersecurity consulting.

Security and servers in the canton

Security is the trait that sets the company apart from many communication agencies. Webcracy carries out penetration tests, that is simulated attacks agreed with the client to find flaws before someone tries to exploit them, and then assists in fixing the problems found. The same approach applies to projects developed in-house, which according to the company follow OWASP best practices and Swiss data protection rules from the start.

The second point is where the data is kept. The managed hosting offered to clients runs on servers in Ticino, with backups in Zurich, and is presented as compliant with the new Federal Act on Data Protection. For professional firms, public bodies and companies handling sensitive information, this means knowing where their records are and which law applies to them.

So Webcracy does not only build: it also does offensive security, meaning it looks at systems through the eyes of an attacker. Besides penetration tests it offers security assessments and vulnerability analysis of the client's systems, and sets out in practical terms how to fix what it finds. Anyone who already has a website or an application can therefore have it checked before someone else discovers the problem. The same principle guides its blockchain work, where smart contracts are designed with security first.

The company works in Italian, German, French and English, and also lists Chinese and Japanese among the languages in which it can handle a project. Its main market remains Ticino, but its services are aimed at the rest of Switzerland and abroad as well.

Ticino has few firms able to combine development, security and infrastructure without relying on suppliers north of the Alps or abroad. Webcracy is one of them, and three years after its founding it shows that a full-service software house can grow outside the hubs of Lugano and Zurich too.