Bug Bounty Switzerland secures 12 million francs
The Swiss pioneer in ethical hacking closes a Series A financing round of 12 million Swiss francs. The capital will flow into the international expansion and development of the AI-supported Cyber Resilience Shield - at a time when artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing cyber threats.
Bug Bounty Switzerland, the Swiss pioneer in ethical hacking, intelligent security testing and the service-as-software model, announces the closing of a CHF 12 million Series A financing round. The round was led by Direttissima Growth Partners, with equal participation from Deutsche Beteiligungs AG (DBAG). The investment is made as a minority stake in the context of a capital increase - the founding team continues to hold the majority of the shares and plays a key role in shaping the strategic direction.
Direttissima, a European growth equity investor based in Zurich and Munich, brings operational scale-up experience in the B2B technology sector and a network of entrepreneurial investors. Listed since 1985, DBAG invests via its long-term investment strategy - equity without the holding periods of a fund structure - enabling a true long-term partnership. Philipp Bolliger, Partner at Direttissima, will join the Board of Directors of Bug Bounty Switzerland.
Self-financed, profitable and trustworthy
The financing round marks the next stage in Bug Bounty Switzerland's development: the transition from a self-financed founding team to a category-defining European scale-up. The capital will be used for international expansion, the development of AI-supported security testing towards increasingly autonomous orchestration and team growth.
Bug Bounty Switzerland was founded in 2020, but has its roots in the first Bug Bounty programs in Switzerland, which date back to 2015. The company has been self-funded throughout, is profitable and enjoys the trust of over 50 corporate clients: Financial institutions, global consumer goods brands, critical infrastructure operators and public sector bodies, including Switzerland's Federal Office for Cybersecurity (BACS).
Results instead of tools: a different approach to security testing
Companies are in a constant state of change. Cloud, SaaS, APIs and AI-supported development deliver code faster than traditional penetration tests can keep up with. At the same time, attackers are using AI to find and exploit vulnerabilities faster than ever before. Against this backdrop, selective testing is becoming structurally inadequate; continuous, intelligent and results-oriented testing is becoming a necessity.
Bug Bounty Switzerland takes a different approach. Instead of selling tools and leaving the coverage to the buyer, the result is sold: continuous, measurable test coverage of the entire exposed attack surface, end-to-end. The Cyber Resilience Shield combines AI-powered orchestration, years of testing context, a vetted global community of over 16,000 ethical hackers and increasingly offensive AI agents - delivered as a subscription that can be activated within 24 hours and requires no in-house specialists.
Customers are replacing a patchwork of individual pentests and disconnected scanners with a single continuous platform. They report significant savings in costs and detection time as well as greater depth of testing. From the CISO to the board of directors, findings are continuously translated into the respective business context and the corresponding risk considerations.
«With AI fundamentally changing cyber security, organizations need protection that is continuous, intelligent and easy to use. This is exactly what we are already delivering to some of Europe's most security-conscious organizations - and we are now bringing it to market globally. With the support of Direttissima and DBAG, we are making intelligent security testing the new standard.» - Sandro Nafzger, CEO & Co-Founder, Bug Bounty Switzerland
«BBS combines three things that rarely come together: a differentiated product built on years of proprietary know-how and data, profitable operations from the start without external funding and a market where continuous security testing of best practice becomes the standard. The team has earned the right to redefine and lead this category.» - Philipp Bolliger, Partner, Direttissima Growth Partners
«BBS fits our long-term investment profile: a founder-led, profitable company with a clear technological advantage in a structurally growing market. Our equity gives the team the flexibility to extend its lead over many years instead of optimizing for a single cycle.» - Jochen Baumann, Member of the Management Board, Deutsche Beteiligungs AG
More information: www.bugbounty.ch
