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For the past several years,\u00a0HackerOne<\/a> has been helping customers build bug bounty programs to find vulnerabilities in their software, and today it hauled in a big bounty of its own \u2014 a $40 million Series C investment led by Dragoneer Investment Group.<\/p>\n Existing investors NEA and Benchmark also participated, as well as a strategic investor the company chose not to disclose.<\/p>\n It brings the total investment to $74 million. Interestingly, CEO M\u00e5rten Mickos says the company really didn\u2019t need the money, but there was significant\u00a0investor interest and they decided to take the money, rather than wait until there was a specific need. Having a substantial amount of cash gives the company flexibility for several years, he says.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been around the block a few times. You shouldn\u2019t raise too much capital, and if you have raised capital, you shouldn\u2019t use it all, but [having the money] can show how serious you are and lets you undertake new opportunities when you see them and move faster,\u201d Mickos told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n HackerOne has developed a bug bounty platform, which lets customers offer money to security experts (or hackers) to comb the code and find specific vulnerabilities. It has attracted some big names to the platform including SnapChat (which filed for an IPO last week<\/a>), Uber<\/a>, GM and the Pentagon, to name but a few.<\/p>\n Every platform has bugs and companies do their best to find them before they go live, but even the most technically proficient companies need help finding them. By offering a reward, companies can access a community of experts, who compete to find the bug and earn the money.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a concept that\u2019s taken time to take hold, but $40 million suggests that investors think its time has come. \u201cLast year we saw tremendous growth. The hacker community tripled. Sales grew even faster. The world is coming this way. The best way to find vulnerabilities in live software is to employ security experts,\u201d Mickos enthused.<\/p>\n One thing they intend to do with the money is to invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning to reduce the amount of noise on the platform for customers and get as close to 100 percent signal (actionable data) as possible.<\/p>\n When asked about a valuation for the round, Mickos wanted no part of such a discussion. \u201cWe won\u2019t discuss valuation until the day we go public. It\u2019s nothing we disclose or discuss. A business, is not about valuation, it\u2019s about serving customers and delivering amazing value,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The company has 700 customers running the platform with access to over 100,000 hackers. To date $14\u00a0million has been paid to hackers via the platform (with half that in 2016 alone).<\/p>\n \u201cThe average bounty paid is around $500 per report. The minimum is $100, but can be thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. The highest bounty on the platform is $50K, and the highest paid so far is $30K,\u201d Mickos explained.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n