Danish cybersecurity startup Cobalt raises $29 million Series B for ethical hacking platform

Cobalt, a Danish-born cybersecurity platform that connects human penetration testers (sometimes known as ‘ethical hackers’) with companies looking to test their software, has raised $29 million to continue global expansion from its current headquarters in San Francisco. The Series B round was led by Highland Europe and brings the startup’s total funding to $37 million. Cobalt was founded in 2013 by four Danish co-founders: Jacob Hansen, Esben Friis-Jensen, Jakob Storm and Christian Hansen. The company now has more than 500 clients, including GoDaddy, Vonage, Axel Springer and MuleSoft, and around 300 pentesters on its platform. “The pentesting industry doesn't need another cool tool, it needs people and process innovation. That is why we created a way to engage the best cybersecurity talent, via our pentest management platform, allowing customers to move from a static pentest to platform-driven pentest programs,” explains Jacob Hansen, the CEO. “By providing an automated and collaborative environment for DevOps professionals to engage with cybersecurity experts, Cobalt is disrupting a critical part of the application security and compliance value chain,” says Gajan Rajanathan of Highland Europe. He will join the company’s board.

Photo: Cobalt co-founders