Bengaluru-based cybersecurity startup BugBase on Tuesday said it has raised $500,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by 2am VC, with participation from Finsight Ventures, Dholakia Ventures and SAT Industries.
The fundraise was also joined by a host of marquee angel investors including Neeraj Roy (founder of Hungama Entertainment), Nilesh Sangoi (founding CTO and former CEO of Meru Cabs), Kushal Khandwala (director, KIFS Group) and Puneet Deora (MD, Deoras Group), among others.
BugBase plans to use the fresh capital for expanding its team in engineering, security and business development to boost product offerings.
Founded in 2021 by two 20-year-old entrepreneurs Dhruva Goyal and Kathan Desai, BugBase, a marketplace of ethical hackers, assists organizations in staying cyber safe by providing a platform for continuous and comprehensive security testing.
The startup is currently hosting Bug Bounty programmes and PTaaS (Pentest-as-a-service) programmes for companies like boAt and ImpactGuru, it said in a statement.
“Bugbase intends to give a large community of ethical hackers access to an optimized platform that has already begun to revolutionize India's cybersecurity market. We aim to spread awareness about cybersecurity among organizations and businesses likewise and hope to facilitate interactions between ethical hackers and companies,” said Dhruva Goyal, founder and chief executive officer, BugBase.
2am VC is a US-domiciled India-focused venture fund for Gen Z entrepreneurs. In February this year, VCCircle reported that the venture capital firm is planning to launch its second fund in the third quarter of 2022 as it looks to invest in more technology companies in the country.
“We believe that the youth of India will play a significant role in the future growth of ethical hacking as a service - especially as the Web3 world yearns for decentralization. The BugBase team is organized and amazingly driven by 20-year-old ethical hackers who demonstrate community leadership and a burning desire to bring ethical hacking mainstream,” said Hershel Mehta, general partner, 2am VC.
In other recent developments around the cybersecurity space, Traceable AI, in May, raised $60 million as a part of its Series B funding led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), with participation from Tiger Global Management and existing investors Unusual Ventures and BIG Labs.
In April, US and India-based Securden Inc, an information technology (IT) security startup, raised $10.5 million as part of its Series A funding.
