Hackrate
A Budapest-based ethical hacking platform whose HackGATE product gives clients a monitored, auditable gateway over bug bounty and pentest engagements.
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Hackrate is a Budapest, Hungary-based offensive security company founded in 2020 by CEO Balázs Pózner and CTO Levente Molnar. The company runs a crowdsourced ethical hacking platform offering managed bug bounty programs, penetration-testing-as-a-service, and vulnerability disclosure programs, drawing on a self-reported pool of more than 5,000 registered researchers.
Its distinguishing product is HackGATE, a managed gateway (patent pending in the US) that sits between clients and the researchers testing their systems, giving the client real-time visibility into and control over what testers are doing during an engagement — addressing a governance gap that plain bug-bounty marketplaces typically leave unaddressed. The company reports ISO/IEC 27001 certification and, since 2025, membership in White Hat Group.
Hackrate’s disclosed funding is small (reported figures for total funding range between roughly $750,000 and $825,000 across sources, with no financing activity found since 2023), and the company has not published named enterprise customers, so its market traction is harder to verify independently than its product claims.
Innovation Matrix Assessment
HackGATE adds a genuinely useful monitoring/governance layer over existing bug-bounty and pentest workflows, representing a specific, shipped innovation rather than just a marketplace relaunch.
Gives clients an audit trail and real-time control over third-party offensive-security engagements, directly useful for CISOs who need to govern, not just commission, pentest and bounty work.
Disclosed total funding is under $1M with no round reported since 2023; the company joined the larger White Hat Group in 2025, which reads more as consolidation than independent growth momentum.
Operates in the established bug-bounty/PTaaS category alongside much larger platforms (HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti); HackGATE is a meaningful feature, not a category redefinition.
ISO/IEC 27001 certification and customer-sector claims are self-reported on the company's own channels; no independent certification registry entry or named customer case study was found.
Demand for auditable, governed third-party security testing is likely to persist and grow as organizations scale bug bounty and pentest programs.
Why CISOs Should Care
HackGATE lets a CISO retain visibility and control over what outside researchers are actually doing during an engagement, reducing the governance blind spot of open bug-bounty programs.
What Makes It Different
Adds a monitored gateway layer on top of the standard crowdsourced testing model, rather than only matching companies with researchers.
The Matrix Verdict
43/100 — EMERGING / UNRANKED
An Emerging/Unranked entry: a small but genuinely differentiated regional player with a sensible governance-focused product, held back by minimal disclosed funding and no independently verified customer evidence.
Editorial Note: Claims vs. Verified Findings
Researcher-pool size, ISO 27001 certification, and customer-sector breadth are all self-reported by the company; independent funding trackers disagree on total amount raised (roughly $750K-$825K), so that figure should be treated as approximate.
Sources
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