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Hacker-powered security company HackerOne will use fresh funding to expand its global market reach.
On Sunday (8 September), HackerOne announced that it has raised $36.4m in Series D funding, bringing the total amount raised by the company to more than $110m to date.
The funding announcement comes at time when cybersecurity expertise is more necessary than ever before, with a number of high-profile cyberattacks and data breaches occurring since the beginning of the year.
HackerOne, which is a hacker-powered pentest (ethical hacking) and bug bounty platform, saw investment from existing investors Benchmark, New Enterprise Associates, Dragoneer Investment Group and EQT Ventures.
The round was led by Valor Equity Partners. David Obrand, partner at Valor Equity Partners, will join HackerOne’s board of directors.
The company plans to use the funding to expand its global market reach, scale enterprise and data-powered offerings, and continue to strengthen its diverse hacker community.
HackerOne has a vast list of customers, including Alibaba, Airbnb, Dropbox, Google Play, the European Commission, Nintendo, PayPal and Qualcomm.
‘Hacker-powered security is here to stay’
HackerOne said that hackers living in 19 countries earned more than $100,000 in total last year from using the platform. The average bounty paid for critical vulnerabilities increased to $3,384.
The number of hackers on the platform whose lifetime earnings has surpassed $1m, it added, has increased to six. The platform’s community has resolved more than 30,541 security vulnerabilities in the last 12 months alone.
In a past interview with TechCrunch, HackerOne CEO Marten Mickos suggested that a significant portion of the hackers on the platform are teenagers.
“They’ll write us and say their life has been changed,” he said.“They bought an apartment for their mother or they bought a motorbike for themselves. They show up on social media in their HackerOne hoodies. That’s their identity.
“It’s shaping them into respectable, contributing citizens who take responsibility for the world. It’s amazing to see how these young people stand up when we adults have been screwing up this world.”
Speaking about the latest investment, Valor Equity Partners’ Obrand said: “HackerOne is leading a new wave of cybersecurity companies tackling the unique challenges brought on by rapid growth and more sophisticated attack surfaces.
“Hacker-powered security is here to stay and with its tremendous customer and hacker community, HackerOne is dominating the market. I am thrilled to be joining the board of directors and being a part of the next stage of growth and innovation.”
HackerOne, which was founded seven years ago, is headquartered in San Francisco. It also has offices in London, New York, the Netherlands, France and Singapore.
HackerOne is currently working with Facebook and its partners ahead of the launch of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency. The cybersecurity company is helping the social media site build its bug bounty programme for applications on its blockchain.
