Synack operates a crowdsourced security platform that combines more than 1,500 vetted ethical hackers in the Synack Red Team (from 82 countries) with proprietary SmartScan technology and machine learning to continuously find vulnerabilities. Its customers include Global 2000 banks, retailers and healthcare companies representing over $1 trillion in assets, federal agencies including the Department of Defense and programs like Hack the Pentagon, and defense contractors such as General Dynamics Information Technology. The company was founded in 2013 by former NSA security experts Jay Kaplan (CEO) and Dr. Mark Kuhr (CTO) and is based in Silicon Valley. Synack plans to expand internationally across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Asia, grow its global partner network, and broaden its offering to medium and smaller enterprises. It intends to continue investing in its SRT community and in product innovation—advancing SmartScan, AI/ML capabilities, data analytics and research. The company recently completed a $52 million Series D, bringing total funding to $112.1 million. Synack combines automated security tooling with a private, vetted global community of several hundred white-hat hackers to perform penetration testing and remediate vulnerabilities. It offers a flat-fee subscription model that runs automated scans and brings in human hackers when necessary. The company follows a three-pronged "command, control and action" approach: command (hacker community), control (automated penetration testing) and action (remediation plans). Synack has around 100 employees and about 100 enterprise customers. The company says revenue has been doubling every year. With the new funding it plans to expand into new markets in Europe and Asia. Synack operates an enterprise-class crowdsourced security testing platform that lets customers engage a global, on-demand community of trusted security researchers to perform and manage security testing. The company serves customers across multiple verticals, including financial services, banking, healthcare, education, retail, entertainment, technology and manufacturing. Synack plans to use new funding to expand its internal security engineering team and to recruit and certify additional researchers worldwide. The company will also expand R&D efforts and further develop its security platform. Synack was co-founded in 2013 by CEO Jay Kaplan and CTO Mark Kuhr and is based in Redwood City, California. As of the Series B, the company has raised more than $34M in total funding. Synack operates a bounty-based security platform that pays vetted "white hat" researchers to uncover network and data vulnerabilities, using a taxonomy that scales payouts by severity. The company was founded by Jay Kaplan (CEO) and Mark Kuhr (CTO), both former NSA senior analysts, and is based in Menlo Park, California. Synack requires a rigorous certification process for researchers and initially recruited experts through the founders' networks. The firm reports having hundreds of experts in its network and is recruiting more widely, including from emerging markets. With the new funding, Synack plans to further expand its pool of testers and to build a sales and marketing team to sell its services to enterprise customers. Synack operates a controlled testing marketplace that vets and matches independent security researchers to corporate vulnerability-testing engagements. The company performs initial security assessments, helps clients create testing listings tailored to budget and technical requirements, and provisions virtual private testing environments. Researchers sign up for individual listings, agree to NDAs, and submit detailed reports with reproduction steps and mitigation recommendations. Synack says it handles payment to researchers using a methodology to establish the market value of each vulnerability submission and that companies only pay if a vulnerability is found. The startup’s community has identified vulnerabilities at Google, Facebook, and PayPal. The company has raised $1.5 million in seed funding to scale its crowdsourced vulnerability-testing marketplace.

Total raised

$107M

Funding rounds

5

Latest round

Series D

Latest activity

May 2020