Immunefi recently announced that it had managed to raise $24 million in a Series A funding round that was led by Framework Ventures.
The popular bug bounty system for decentralized finance (DeFi) projects and smart contracts made the announcement in a press release.
Some of the other companies that participated in the funding round include Samsung Next, Polygon Ventures, Third Prime Ventures, Stratos DeFi, P2P Capital, Electric Capital, Lattice Capital and North Island Ventures.
The platform
The Immunefi platform is for ethical hackers, or whitehats as they are often called, and it offers bug bounty programs to them.
Essentially, it means that security researchers review code for identifying any vulnerabilities and they are rewarded for the efforts they make.
The company disclosed that there are almost 301 projects that use its platform for hosting their bug bounty program.
This means that it helps in protecting approximately $100 million worth of funds that are currently locked in the various smart contracts and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols that exist.
Some of the renowned names that use Immunefi include Cream Finance, SushiSwap, Compound, MakerDAO, Chainlink, Bancor, OlympusDAO, PancakeSwap and Synthetix.
Background
It should also be noted that Immunefi also played a key role in facilitating the biggest bug bounty payments that have been made in the history of such programs.
This includes $10 million that was paid out for identifying a vulnerability in cross-chain communication protocol called Wormhole, which had been hacked this year in February for $320 million.
Likewise, another payment that was made was worth $6 million for discovering a vulnerability in Aurora, which is a scaling solution and bridge for Ethereum.
According to the company, it has paid out bounties of about $60 million in total to date.
The chief executive and founder of Immunefi, Mitchell Amador said that as the market continues to grow, it is apparent that its success depends on security, as does the key to ensuring future adoption of the technology.
He stated that Web3 will not be able to expand to more people if there is no increase in trust and security.
The CEO said that the funding they had raised would help them in building the infrastructure needed for keeping up with the growing demand for their services.
Immunefi’s future
Amador stated that since Immunefi launched in December 2020, it had experienced a significant amount of growth in the previous year.
He added that a number of projects had launched their bug bounty programs on Immunefi and bug reports had been submitted by a substantial number of whitehat hackers as well.
Last year, Immunefi managed to raise funds of about $5.5 million in October and it is now planning on using the new funding for expanding its current staff of 50 people.
The CEO said that it is possible they might double their existing headcount and they would also aim to improve transparency and accountability in their process, from report to payout.
He also said that the funds would be used for developing an updated version of their platform.
