Bug Bounty Platform Immunefi Raised $5.5 Million In Funding

The bug bounty platform Immunefi recently raised $5.5 million in funding according to the latest announcement as we are reading more about it in our latest crypto news.

The investors that took part in the fundraising included Blueprint Forest, Framework Ventures, Electric Capital, Bitscape Capital, IDEO Colab, P2P capital, the LAO, 3^rd Prime Ventures, BR Capital, North Island Ventures, and other investors. Hacking incidents are a mission-critical issue in the DeFi space and this year alone there have been around 23 attacks that netted hackers more than $1.7 billion in stolen funds. Helping to ensure the safety of Defi projects, the bug bounty platform Immunefi offers ethical hackers known as Whitehacks where the security researchers can review code, disclose vulnerabilities, and get paid. Mitchell Amador who is the CEO of the platform noted:

“DeFi is unique because vulnerabilities in code represent a possibility of a direct loss of users’ money.”

 

He added that the bounty programs proved to be one of the most effective ways to deal with critical security holes. Also, Polygon which is a scalability solution for Ethereum awarded a record $2 million bounty paid via Immnefi to a white hat hacker that identified a vulnerability that put about $850 million of capital at risk. On other occasions, Belt Finance, the Binance smart chain-based decentralized exchange paid out $1.05 million to a white hat hacker that found a critical vulnerability in the protocol that put more than $10 million of capital at risk. The company said that as of today it protects more than $50 billion in users’ funds and paid well over $7.5 million in bounties with protocols like SushiSwap, Chainlink, Synthetix, NExus Mutual, Cream Finance, Compound, Bancor, PancakeSwap, Alechemix, Armor Fi and more, among its main clients.

Amador outlined that these billions of dollars in users’ funds locked in smart contracts are visible to anyone and the projects they represent which is a promising target for the black hat hackers. Poly Network that suffered one of its biggest hacks in the industry worth $610 million, chose Immunefi to run its bounty program. When asked what other plans the company has, Amador said that it intends to scale its operations and to hire more experienced people:

“Given the number of clients we’ve onboarded, we’re ideally positioned to become the best security services provider in all of DeFi, so we are acquiring cutting-edge security tech and building the most elite emergency response team in the industry.”

He added that Immunefi wants to help hackers find more vulnerabilities and to secure their payouts as the company recieved a fee equal to 10% of the bounty paid to the security researcher:

“The white hat hacker receives their full reward – the payment to Immunefi is in addition to that amount and helps pay for its platform and expertise.”