Venture

Startups Lock Down Government Contracts As Cybersecurity Concerns Grow

While it may be difficult to bring technology to the government, cybersecurity is one area that impacts both the private and public sector. Facebook has had multiple data breaches, most recently in September, and cybersecurity crime, particularly where it concerns China and Russia, is constantly in public sector news.

This summer, Crunchbase News spoke with Matt Cutts and his teams at the U.S. Digital Service about their efforts to enhance cybersecurity at the Department of Defense (DoD). According to Axios and other reports, that program has been expanded and three private cybersecurity companies have signed contracts to participate in the “Hack the Pentagon” program. As a refresher, the program, which began in 2016, was established to help the DoD find vulnerabilities. The DoD works with private sector companies and also recruits white hat hackers from across the U.S.

HackerOne, Synack, and Bugcrowd were reportedly the three companies that secured the government contract. The late-stage startups are backed by investors ranging from M12 (formerly Microsoft Ventures), Benchmark, NES, and Blackbird Ventures. But those aren’t the only companies working with the government. DarkTrace, Crowdstrike, and others have also forged partnerships with government entities at the state and federal level.

As Crunchbase News mentioned last week, security concerns and solutions are more mainstream. For startups, that is an opportunity to capitalize on.

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