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Cobalt’s application security platform and global community of security researchers help organizations fully test security of their web and mobile applications
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 17, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cobalt Labs Inc., a new platform for agile application security services for SaaS businesses, announced today that it has received $1.5 million in seed funding to further build its platform and global community of security researchers. The investment round was led by eLab Ventures, with additional investment from Tim Draper with Draper Associates. The funding follows the $1 million angel round raised in 2014 and brings total funding to $2.5 million.
“We’re excited to partner with Cobalt, a fast growing company that grew its revenue by 300% in 2015. Cobalt is on a path to transform the application security landscape and I am thrilled to be part of the journey,” said Bob Stefanski, general partner at eLab Ventures.
Stefanski joins the Cobalt board, bringing over 25 years of technology industry expertise to the team. He was on the founding management team of TIBCO Software, a leading enterprise infrastructure software company. Caleb Sima, co-founder of BlueBox Security, which sold to Lookout, and co-founder of SPI Dynamics, which was acquired by HP, also joins the board with 20 years of application security experience. Additionally, Robert Fly joins as an investor and advisor with more than 15 years of application security experience from Microsoft and most recently Salesforce, where he built the product security team and was VP of Security Engineering.
SaaS businesses, such as GoDaddy, Wix, Weebly, Nexmo and Optimizely are using the Cobalt platform to test their applications for security vulnerabilities.
“Companies building web and mobile applications need the flexibility to quickly develop new applications that delight their customers, while ensuring that their applications are secure,” said Jacob Hansen, CEO of Cobalt. “Instead of needing to invest in security tools, such as scanners and penetration tools that are expensive and vary in quality, and having to hire security staff or consultants, our customers rely on Cobalt to provide transparent continuous application testing services, leveraging a powerful platform along with a global community of security researchers.”
“I’m impressed by how Cobalt has built its model by taking the best elements from the bug bounty space, which offers rewards to those in the security community who can identify software vulnerabilities, and combining them with a scalable, continuous penetration testing platform,” said Robert Fly.
Caleb Sima added, “I’ve seen how the application security industry has evolved over the last 20 years from the first scanning solutions to today's crowdsourced application security. I’m excited to be a part of the Cobalt team as they move to disrupt the consulting and scanner worlds.”
About Cobalt:
Cobalt Labs Inc., provides a new and effective crowdsourced application security solution for modern organizations. Headquartered in San Francisco and launched in 2013 as CrowdCurity, Cobalt leverages a global intelligent community of security researchers to deliver agile application security services such as penetration testing and curated private bug bounties. Cobalt customers include leading online businesses such as Wix, GoDaddy and Paysafe Group. For more information, visit https://cobalt.io
