Hack The Box raises £1.03 million Seed Investment from Marathon Venture Capital

Hack The Box Raises $1.3M to Build Up The Greatest Hacker Community in the World Celebrating two years after launch and 120k members, the company today announces an investment by Marathon Venture Capital, as it accelerates the delivery of its innovative pen-testing labs, providing a playground for cybersecurity enthusiasts

KENT, UK & ATHENS, GREECE – April 1st, 2019 – The volume of data created, stored and consumed grows exponentially; so does the number and impact of data breaches. Naturally, demand for cybersecurity personnel follows; still, supply is not there yet. For every two cybersecurity jobs in the US, there is another one that remains vacant ; the global cybersecurity talent shortage recently hit three million people . But how could three million people be found and trained?

By nature, hacking is more of a craft than a science; people learn the ropes on the job, rather than at college. Certificates were designed to bridge the skills signaling gap and have been embraced by the market. Even so, practical experience is not always easily accessible to individuals that want to take this career path due to cost, location and time constraints.

Haris Pylarinos, founder, maintained a long-term passion for cybersecurity. Attending several training sessions and online hacker challenges, he came to realize that the most useful and intellectually exciting way to learn was not to read how-tos but trying to actually hack a computer system.

He soon started putting together a platform simulating computer systems made to be hacked, adding various game mechanics on top. James Hooker, a senior software engineer with a passion for cybersecurity, and Aris Zikopoulos, a seasoned business developer with a track record in the space, soon joined as co-founders to further build the platform and a busines around it.

Hack The Box (https://www.hackthebox.eu/) provides penetration testing labs, serving as a training playground for cybersecurity enthusiasts. Every week, HTB makes available a new virtual machine for the players to break in to. As they make their way in, they get points and climb in rankings; the latter are increasingly treated as expertise credentials.

Celebrating two years after launch today, HTB has reached 120k members, becoming the talk of the town in hacker communities around the world. To provide some context, there is no sign-up form; one needs to “hack” their way in the service by solving a challenge. What’s more, while some of the challenges are quite easy for beginners, some are proven to be quite hard, taking experienced hackers many hours or even days to crack them.

HTB provides free access to its twenty most recent machines, which also account for its global rankings. Access to previous ‘retired’ machines requires a ‘VIP’ account, which costs £10/month. The number of available virtual machines has surpassed 100. Enterprises like Jet.com and EY are also building their private HTB labs, or post their cybersecurity jobs to the
people who prove their skills in the platform.

Hack The Box Ltd. announces today the completion of a $1.3M investment round by Marathon Venture Capital (https://marathon.vc/), to accelerate its ambitious product roadmap including an entirely new lab type offering real-time interaction between users, as well as deliver against increasing demand including an expansion of its free services. “Hacking is the new gaming,” said Haris Pylarinos, founder and CEO. “We cater to people who want to test and advance their skills in cybersecurity, and we are thrilled to bring more people into the game every day.”

About Hack The Box Ltd.:

Hack The Box (https://www.hackthebox.eu/) provides penetration testing labs, serving as a training playground for cybersecurity enthusiasts. It currently serves 120k members and dozens of enterprise customers, growing fast to become the greatest hacker community in the world.

About Marathon Venture Capital:

Marathon Venture Capital (https://marathon.vc/) is an early-stage venture capital fund, helping ambitious founders build world-class technology companies.

Manoj Ranaweera

Manoj has founded, failed and successfully exited from a number of technology product companies as well as support organisations since 2004. Among them, Northern Tech Awards and edocr.com were acquired by GP Bullhound and Accusoft, Inc respectively. Today, Manoj is building a trusted support network for technology companies. He is working with founding teams to help them accelerate including raising investment and M&A.

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