Crowdsourced security leader announces new CPO amid company momentum of a $102M Funding round, Acquisition of Informer and 130+ new customers in the first half of 2024
Bugcrowd, the leader in crowdsourced security, today announced the hiring of Braden Russell as Chief Product Officer. Russell joins Bugcrowd from Crowdstrike, where he was the Chief Technology Officer of the Falcon Platform and Next-Gen Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution. Russell also oversaw the vision and strategy for CrowdStrike’s first Security Cloud. This addition comes in the midst of significant momentum for Bugcrowd, including continued product innovations in pen testing and attack surface management.
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“I am thrilled to join the Bugcrowd team at such an exciting time in the company’s growth,” said Braden Russell, Chief Product Officer, Bugcrowd. “Bugcrowd’s mission to harness the power of the global hacker community aligns perfectly with my passion for innovation and cybersecurity, and I’m eager to work alongside such a talented group of individuals as we continue to scale, innovate, and deliver cutting-edge security solutions that make a real impact. Together, we’ll push the boundaries of what’s possible in crowdsourced security and drive forward Bugcrowd’s vision for making the internet safer.”
Prior to CrowdStrike, Russell held leadership positions at Foundstone, McAfee, Intel Security, and Cylance. In his new role leading Bugcrowd’s fast growing product portfolio, Russell will assume responsibility for all R&D groups within the company, including Product, Engineering, Infrastructure, and Data Science, reporting directly to Chief Executive Officer Dave Gerry.
Russell is joining Bugcrowd as the company is experiencing a wave of product and channel momentum in the first half of 2024, beginning with its major $102 million funding round. Since then, over 130 new customers joined the Bugcrowd Platform, including Google, New Relic, OpenSea, KuCoin, bringing the total number of customers to over 1,200. The company also saw unprecedented growth in the channel, including the launch of its CrowdConnect program in January with over 100% growth in channel-led business.
“As we continue to rapidly accelerate, drive innovation on our platform, and plan additional acquisitions, it became clear that we needed a leader with the experience of scaling large SaaS platforms to hundreds of millions in revenue,” said Dave Gerry, CEO of Bugcrowd. “Braden is a cybersecurity leader with 20 years of both strategic and technical experience. I’m eager to work closely with him as we continue our rapid momentum alongside customers, hackers, and partners.”
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The company’s product portfolio saw significant innovations in 2024. Some top milestones include an acquisition of UK-based attack surface management provider Informer in May, resulting in the subsequent launch of Bugcrowd’s Continuous Attack Surface Penetration Testing solution on its AI-powered crowdsourced platform. Along with many new product launches and collaborations with global partners and resellers, Bugcrowd launched its AI Bias Assessment for Large Language Models and its AI Powered Pentesting, both within the first half of 2024. In addition, Google selected Bugcrowd as its new payment platform as the tech behemoth sought to improve the scale and speed of payments to its bug hunters.
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