Today, I’m thrilled to announce the next chapter at Ethiack. We’ve successfully completed a €4 million seed funding round, marking a major milestone in our mission to secure the Internet.
Since André, Vitor, and I started Ethiack back in 2022, we’ve been on a constant growth spree. We started with some help from business angels, but beyond that, we’ve been mostly bootstrapped. Despite this, we’ve reached the legendary milestone of $1 million ARR, with more than 50 clients across 9 different countries, and expanded our team to over 10 people. During these short (but definitely packed!) years, we’ve had the privilege of securing major organizations, including ANA Airports, SONAE (Retail), Broadvoice (Telecom), and CNCS (Portugal’s Cybersecurity Agency). We’ve tested over 150,000 assets, many belonging to highly critical infrastructure. This is what our technology was made for!
Not only that, we’ve received several awards proving our effort. WebSummit’s Most Promising Startup, WSA in 2023, and Portugal’s National Innovation Award are just a few examples. Getting here wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our team, mentors, advisors and investors.
It has been exciting. But what’s coming won’t be like anything we’ve seen so far.
Resources to Power the Future: the Hackbot
The main goal of this funding round was to multiply our investment into the Hackbot: the next generation of Continuous Pentesting technology. This requires a lot of resources and people dedicated to R&D. It will also usher in a new chapter in cybersecurity: a highly capable ethical hacker, available 24/7, capable of reporting critical vulnerabilities, including new CVEs and unknown vulnerabilities, 0days.
Currently, 20% of the findings we report have a CVSS score above 4.0. Our goal is to further increase this percentage and uncover even more highly critical vulnerabilities.
We’ll achieve this by upgrading our existing Continuous Pentesting technology - highly precise and impactful - to be able to understand attack surfaces and how assets are connected, and explore complex attack vectors. In short: an Artificial Ethical Hacker that will test your assets at scale.
Additionally, this round will support our expansion into new markets, starting with the UK and Europe, but with eyes on the U.S. and the Middle East. This will allow us to test more assets, further helping us in our mission of securing the internet.
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Ethiack co-founders: André Baptista (CTO), Vítor Pinho (CCSO) and Jorge Monteiro (CEO)
A Special Thank You
I want to take some time to thank each and every one of our investors. The round was led by Explorer Investments, Portugal’s largest Private Equity fund, and followed by CoreAngels, Paulo Marques, Startup Wise Guys, Aralab, Amena Ventures, and Start Ventures. Additionally, we received a public grant from CENTRO 2030, Portugal 2030, and the European Union. Not only that, we’d like to thank those at IPN, Core Angels, Startup Wise Guys, Google for Startups and so many more advisors and investors for their relentless support in our journey. We’re extremely proud to have these partners with us, bringing their expertise to help us grow and tackle the challenges ahead.
As leaders in this funding round, we are proud to support visionary founders addressing the critical challenges of the digital era. Ethiack’s pioneering integration of AI and ethical hacking offers a fresh, innovative approach to cybersecurity, perfectly aligning with our mission to foster scalable, impactful solutions. We are excited about this partnership and look forward to supporting their growth as they expand their global presence.- Explorer Investments
I have high hopes for Ethiack. Their use of AI for Ethical Hacking is a major disruption to the way companies protect their digital assets. Their technology is extremely well-positioned for winning this game.- Paulo Marques
As fintech investors, we are closely monitoring financial entities' preparations to meet the requirements imposed by the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) in the EU. Ethiack’s solution will be crucial in enabling comprehensive and continuous testing. We strongly believe they are well-positioned to become the industry standard, and we are excited to support them on their journey!- Start Ventures
Looking Ahead
Now that the toasts have been made and the celebrations wrapped up, it’s time to build. You’ll see the launch of the Hackbot, better ASM visualization and identification tools, a growing team, and new markets.
We’re ready to grow. We’re ready to build. The world is calling for better security, and we’re here to deliver it.
Let’s secure the internet, one vulnerability at a time.
Obrigado,
Jorge & the Ethiack team