DeFi bug bounty platform Immunefi raises $5.5 million in seed funding

Immunefi, a crypto startup that helps DeFi protocols launch bug bounty programs on its platform, has raised $5.5 million in a seed funding round.

Electric Capital and Blueprint Forest co-led the round, with Framework Ventures, Bitscale Capital, IDEO Colab, The LAO, BR Capital, and North Island Ventures, also participating, among other investors.

This was an equity funding round and will help Immunefi scale its operations, founder and CEO Mitchell Amador told The Block.

"We will continue acquiring cutting-edge security tech and building the most elite emergency response team in the industry," said Amador. "We are especially interested in building vulnerability prediction technology and hacker tooling that makes it easier and easier to find vulnerabilities."

Founded last year, Immunefi is a vulnerability coordination platform that connects DeFi protocols with whitehat hackers. It competes with traditional platforms like HackerOne and Bugcrowd, but is focused on the needs of the DeFi sector, which is vulnerable to hacks and attacks.

According to The Block's Data Dashboard, DeFi attackers have stolen over $400 million in funds to date. Amador said Immunefi has helped discover over 3,500 vulnerabilities to date, preventing over $2 billion worth of hacks.

Immunefi's clients include Synthetix, Chainlink, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, Compound, and more. The platform currently has over $47 million worth of bounties available, and to date, it has paid out over $7.5 million worth of bounties.

Earlier this month, Polygon, for example, paid out a record $2 million bounty via Immunefi to a whitehat hacker who discovered a critical vulnerability in the protocol that put approximately $850 million of capital at risk.

Speaking of its business model, Immunefi takes a 10% commission on top of any bounties paid out via the platform, said Amador.

To help scale its operations, Amador is also looking to expand its current team of 34 to over 100 people by the end of next year. The seed funding round comes after a "small" pre-seed round from "family and friends," said Amador, adding that the firm expects to raise more funds as soon as it is ready to decentralize its operations.

Amador declined to comment when asked if Immunefi will launch its own token to meet its decentralization objectives.