New Bugcrowd CEO To Channel: ‘We’re Open For Business’

Dave Gerry takes command of ‘crowdsourced cybersecurity’ firm with aim of doubling size of business within a few years

Dave Gerry

Cybersecurity firm Bugcrowd has tapped Dave Gerry, its chief operating officer of three months and previously the chief revenue officer at WhiteHat Security, as its new chief executive charged with rapidly growing the firm best known for hiring freelance hackers and others to test the security posture of companies.

Gerry, who first joined the San Francisco-based Bugcrowd in early August, replaces Ashish Gupta, CEO of the firm since 2017, effective immediately. Gupta recently left the company to pursue other opportunities and with Gerry praising his work in growing the firm over the past five years.

In an interview with CRN, Gerry said among his first goals as CEO is to start the process of ramping up sales at Bugcrowd, which was founded in 2012 and describes itself as a “crowdsourced cybersecurity company.”

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“We’ve got really big ambitions,” said Gerry, adding he’d like to double the size of the firm’s workforce to 500 people over the next five years.

Though he wouldn’t disclose Bugcrowd’s current revenue, he said he’d like the firm to exceed $100 million in annual recurring revenue within a few years.

As for his channel plans, Gerry said Bugcrowd today generates only about 10 percent of its sales via the channel. But he said he’d like to expand that to 35 to 40 percent inthe coming years.

“We’re open for business,” he said of Bugcrowd’s bid for new channel partners. “Bugcrowd is open for business. We want to partner with folks. We want to build strong and deep relationships with channel partners. We want to take the solutions that we have out to the market -- and we know that our channel partners are the best path for us to go do that.”

Though he didn’t provide details, Gerry added the company will “launch an incredibly robust channel program.”

Founded in Australia in 2012, Bugcrowd located to the U.S. in 2013 and has raised about $80 million over the years, most recently netting $30 million in a Series D funding round led by Rally Ventures in 2020.

Bugcrowd has added a number of new products and services over the years, including pen testing and attack surface management.

But its biggest and most well-known security offering is its “Bug Bounty” program, in which it hires “ethical hackers” and other freelance techies to find vulnerabilities in companies’ systems. Like the program’s name says, the crowdsourced testers are paid via bounties on the security bugs they identify.

In a press release, Casey Ellis, founder, chairperson and CTO of Bugcrowd, said the crowdsourced-testing approach toward security has worked over the years.

“From our inception, the mission of the Bugcrowd platform has been to connect the latent potential of the good-faith hacker community with cybersecurity’s unmet demands—unlocking an army of allies to outsmart an army of adversaries,” said Ellis, company founder, chairperson and CTO.

“In 2022 the need for this has never been more obvious,” he said. “As the board considered the best CEO to lead Bugcrowd’s coming season of acceleration and innovation, Dave’s track record of operational excellence, deep cybersecurity experience, go-to-market and partnership prowess, and profound enthusiasm for the space our company pioneered all shone through. Personally, I’m thrilled to welcome him to the CEO role.”

Also in a press release, Mike Jennings, a partner at Rally Ventures, said Gerry was an obvious choice to lead the company.

“In addition to the knowledge that Dave has gathered since joining Bugcrowd, he brings strong institutional experience in cybersecurity,making him a natural fit for the CEO role,” Jennings said. “He is a proven leader with over a decade of experience in the AppSec market, and his familiarity with Bugcrowd allows him to seamlessly assume the new responsibilities of the position. We are confident that he is well-positioned to lead the team in accelerating Bugcrowd’s growth strategy moving forward.”

In his interview with CRN, Gerry, who previously has also held key sales, marketing and business development posts at security firms Veracode and Sumo Logic, said his three top goals at the Bugcrowd are scaling up the company, hiring ‘high-performance talent,’ and maintaining an innovative edge.

As for the channel, he said his company will be reaching out to MSPs, MSSPs, VARs and solution integrators.

“There’s a lot more than we can do here,” he said of growing the company.