Cybersecurity startup HackEDU announced it has moved its headquarters from Santa Monica, California, to the Strip District in Pittsburgh, as the 43-person company looks to double its headcount over the next year. It currently employs just under half of its total workforce locally, with 21 reporting out of its Strip District HQ office in the Crane Building on 24th Street.
HackEDU President Jared Ablon and Chief Technology Officer Matt Koskela founded the startup in 2017 after previously working at a company that offers an airspace management platform for drone operators. It was at that firm that they realized many of the company's developers didn't know how to write secure code. That anecdotal lesson reportedly turned out to be more prevalent throughout the software engineering industry as a whole, the duo realized, which led them to launch their own business out of Ablon's Santa Monica apartment geared at informing veteran and novice coders alike on how to write code specifically designed to be impenetrable to hacking or sabotage.
Moving the company's headquarters to Pittsburgh comes following an October 2021 undisclosed investment into HackEDU by New York-based private investment firm Level Equity, which had previously invested in Pittsburgh-based cybersecurity startup Wombat Security before Proofpoint, another cybersecurity firm, acquired Wombat in 2018.
Following its acquisition, Wombat's then-President and CEO Joe Ferrara took on a consulting role for HackEDU given the similarities between what Wombat offered its customers and what HackEDU was striving to accomplish. Ferrara's link between Level Equity and HackEDU is what then led to Level's investment in the startup, which then resulted in Ferrara taking the position of CEO for HackEDU to help lead the business to its next stage. Also joining HackEDU as chief revenue officer was Ralph Massaro, previously vice president of sales at Wombat. Amy Baker is HackEDU's chief marketing officer after having been vice president of security awareness training marketing and product management with Wombat.
"All three of us had been leaders at Wombat Security and had solved this problem in various different ways; we understand the market, we understand the software that we're trying to build in order to serve this need, and so therefore we're incredibly qualified to help HackEDU with the next stage of growth," Baker said. "All three of us happened to be living in Pittsburgh and familiar with the technology scene here and all the talent that's available to us, which is why it made it obvious to move the headquarters of the business here. Three of the five leaders of the business are now in the Pittsburgh area, and then we knew we had the opportunity to attract talent here that was incredibly qualified for the role because we built a business doing very similar things previously."
Baker said HackEDU has 18 open positions in nearly every area of the business; accounting, human resources, marketing, sales, software engineering and others. And while it's looking to take advantage of the local talent available and grow its now-Pittsburgh-based headquarters, Baker said HackEDU wants to leave those positions open to remote candidates as well.
In addition to trying to double its workforce over the next year, Baker said HackEDU wants to see its revenue figures double as well, though she declined to disclose what those were. HackEDU views its customer base as wide-ranging, with Baker stating that "there are very few businesses we cannot sell to or do not attempt to sell to, from the smallest to the largest."
"Almost every single business writes software, doesn't matter who you are, either you're using it internally for proprietary purposes or you're marketing it and selling it. Either way, you're probably writing software in which case it's your responsibility to ensure that it's secure," Baker said. "From a security perspective, making sure your software is secure is incredibly valuable and important in protecting the business. So for us, it's basically what Jared and Matt set out to do. They decided to then start their own business of creating very unique training (materials) to teach developers how to write secure code."
