Invest in The HACKERverse® - A Google AI Startup ‘24

Fasten your seatbelt and brace yourself, for the tale that unfolds ahead is not for the faint of heart. This is not a bedtime story to lull you into sweet dreams; instead, it's a journey through the dystopian labyrinth we call the now, otherwise known as the “Ultimate AI-Powered Self-Service Proof of Concept Platform for Cybersecurity!”

In 2024, the HACKERverse® was selected to become part of the Google for Startups AI Cybersecurity Growth Accelerator. This couldn't have come at a better time, as we were on the forefront of building AI into our platform. Our AI-powered POC platform is simple in concept but uses a wide variety of AI tools, mostly based on Google's AI platform products. The algorithm's high-level steps are:

1. Into the heart of our AI engine plunges the vendor's software, website, and other Technical Marketing® data.
2. The HACKERverse® AI engine grinds through the data and torques out a razor-edged Proof of Concept (POC) rig where the end user can perform a hands-on test drive on their own time. (See picture below)
3. Once inside the POC rig, the end user can reduce the total time to vet a product from months down to minutes, saving on significant costs and blowing ROI through the roof.

Our Patent Pending interface, showing one of our Vendor's products in the HACKERverse® POC platform.

Today, the ever-present threat of cybercrime casts a sinister shadow over our daily existence. You've witnessed the disruption firsthand—Ukraine's electric grid brought to its knees by malicious hackers wielding sophisticated tools. A cyberattack on an Oklahoma hospital impacted critical care and put patients' lives at risk.

In this unsettling landscape, the fragility of our interconnected world is laid bare. These cyber threats are no longer confined to impacting governments and large corporations; they manifest in the systems that sustain our day-to-day lives.

Your safety and well-being hinge on the precarious balance of digital infrastructure.

But amidst the chaos, a beacon of hope emerges. A company radically redefining how the cybersecurity industry operates ultimately makes us all safer. Welcome to the HACKERverse®, cybersecurity's home of tested and proven products.

HACKERverse®: The Ultimate AI-Powered Self-Service PoC Platform for Cybersecurity!

💰 How we make money from The Platform: Cybersecurity vendors pay the HACKERverse® an onboarding and subscription fee to host their hands-on proof of concept for buyers to test drive, and have their product listed in the platform. 

The global cybersecurity software market is expected to grow to 1.5 TN/year by 2030- McKinsey

🛍️ The Platform: The current process for cybersecurity buyers to purchase tools takes an average of 18 months. Our AI-powered self-service PoC platform for cybersecurity solves this with on-demand PoC environments that allow cybersecurity buyers to kick the tires on tooling they're considering, on their schedule in a matter of minutes. There are no salespeople and no sales pitches. When cybersecurity buyers access the automated hands-on PoCs in our platform, they can make faster, more accurate purchasing decisions and have a hand in strengthening cybersecurity for everyone.

🔮 Why this is unique: The current process to purchase cybersecurity tooling for security teams is painful. No one company has attempted to fix this problem in the past 30 years, until now. There is no easy way to assess tools' efficacy and make a swift purchase. 

Our platform allows buyers to compare and contrast tools side-by-side via hands-on Proof of Concept Sandboxes. It uses real products in real-time, in real-world scenarios, with real attacks thrown at the Vendor software. We are focused on B2B as it has the most need and highest impact. As the company progresses, we will aim to be able to provide easy access to tools that individual consumers need for their protection.

💰 How Cybersecurity Vendors Make Money from The Platform: Cybersecurity vendors host their their hands-on proof of concepts featuring their Cybersecurity software for buyers to test drive. The HACKERverse® generates interest from Buyers of Cybersecurity software by featuring their proof of concept in the World Hacker Games™.

The global esports market size was valued at $1.45 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow to $6.75 billion by 2030- Fortune Business Insights

🥊 The Games: Come one come all to the World Hacker Games™ - cybersecurity esports events. During these boundary-breaking battles, viewers watch in real-time to see how cybersecurity tools perform against exploits found in the dark web and surfaced by our HACKERverse® Army.

🔮 Why this is unique: We’re building a cybersecurity esports platform that pits ethical hackers against vendor products. Participation in the games gives cybersecurity software vendors access to audiences of thousands of cybersecurity buyers and enthusiasts who are eager to watch the battle play out and see how well their products perform. Viewers see the efficacy of products in real time. They’ll know which products work and make purchasing decisions accordingly.

💰 How we make money from these events: There are over 4000 cybersecurity vendors all vying to convey why their product is the best solution. The sheer noise blinds security teams, already strapped for time, to identify the best products to address their cybersecurity challenges. Cybersecurity software vendors pay to participate in the World Hacker Games. We build vendors’ custom digital “MMA rings”, host their digital events, and market each event. We then use AI to accelerate the process and train our AI models for better, faster results moving forward.

🫂 The Community: We’ve built and continue to grow an army of ethical hackers dedicated to securing our digital infrastructure against bad actors. Instead of being lured to the “dark” side by the possibility of how lucrative it is and becoming cybercriminals, our community gives these hackers the ability to use their skills to do good by competing for cash prizes in live events, receiving sponsorships, gaining additional street cred and certifications, show off their skills, and getting hired for freelance roles. We offer the ability for hackers to elevate their abilities and their digital presence while also raking in some serious $$$.

🔮 Why this is unique: While there are currently several cybersecurity communities in existence, ours is dedicated to bringing ethical hackers and industry leaders together and in the future, we'll pay them to hone their craft. 

💰How we make money from the community: HACKERverse® members opt-in to a tiered membership model that gives them access to different levels of premium community features.

📖 The HACKERverse® Academy : We partner with cybersecurity education providers to embed their content in the HACKERverse®. This gives our community access to top-notch educational content that will allow them to gain new certifications and build their portfolio of work. 

🔮 Why this is unique: Our community provides ethical hackers with opportunities for showcasing their digital skills and certifications, making them easy to hire for freelance roles.

💰How we make money from HACKERverse.academy: We have referral agreements with education providers to receive payment for paying customers coming from the HACKERverse®. 

Why a Proof of Concept platform driven by community?

The best and the brightest in cybersecurity can’t do their job without easy access to top-tier cyber tooling. While our thriving community and ongoing World Hacker Games™ are exciting, these pieces of the HACKERverse® aren’t complete without our automated PoC Platform. Our platform fixes the sales demo/proof of concept problem and allows cybersecurity buyers to quickly and easily arm themselves and protect our digital infrastructure.  

Our community gives us a strategic advantage for two reasons. First, traditional marketing tactics no longer wield the same impact. Today's cybersecurity buyers are not merely passive recipients of messages; they seek authenticity, connection, and engagement. In a world saturated with lame ads, the authenticity inherent in our community stands out, establishing trust and credibility. 

Second, an engaged and thriving community gives us the ability to fill our own funnel of demand-side cybersecurity buyers for our platform. 

We need to change rapidly how we think about and approach cybersecurity

• The threats from cybercriminals and hostile nation-states continue to mount.
• We need to make the cybersecurity industry engaging and accessible. The more ethical hackers we have on our side, the less of a threat there will be to our banks, electrical grid, public transit systems, water systems, satellites, and more. Our community brings together ethical hackers to find vulnerabilities and battle-test cybersecurity tools, ultimately making the world a safer place for everyone.
• Cybersecurity buyers purchasing products for their teams no longer want to go through the traditional sales process and instead are doing the research to identify products they want and need before getting on a sales call.
• Our World Hacker Games™ events allow cybersecurity buyers to see ethical hackers putting cybersecurity tools to the test, and the platform then gives buyers the ability to try the tool first hand before making a purchasing decision
• With cybersecurity vendors moving their products to the cloud, we now have the technical capability to automate Proof of Concepts of vendor software. 
• Cybersecurity software companies are looking to trim their headcounts and pull back on spending. By automating their sales process, they will no longer need to rely on large sales teams to meet quotas. 

Today’s B2B buyers are already 70% of the way through the purchasing process before they reach out to sales - Gartner

Meet Your Fearless HACKERverse® Leaders

Competitive Landscape

Platform Competitors

While there are demo-creation tools in the market, they are just a band-aid on the real problem of vendor-led sales motions. Additionally, there is little competition in the Proof of Concept platform market and we are forging through this difficult part of the sales problem. Our AI-powered self-service PoC platform for cybersecurity and community creates a unique buyer-led sales motion. We are a platform solely focused on cybersecurity. Existing software platforms only provide basic product information, and there's no way to know whether reviews are real. Too much trust has been put into Vendors by Buyers, and that needs to change, and we are changing it now.

Community Competitors 

While there are a variety of cybersecurity industry communities in existence, we do things differently. Our community is designed to help freelance ethical hackers thrive in today's creator economy. We bring cybersecurity teams, leaders, and enthusiasts from across the industry. In a time of increasing levels of cybercrime, fostering collaborative conversations helps us better protect against threats. We believe the future of buying and sourcing products will be community-led.

The Ultimate AI-Powered Self-Service PoC Platform for Cybersecurity

There are established players that stream esports content. To our knowledge, no stream of cybersecurity esports content exposes ethical hackers and vendor solutions. We have a patent in process for this model.

Built by cybersecurity, for cybersecurity

We've Gotten A Lot Done Just By Bootstrapping

• Twelve paying customers have active Proof of Concepts and engagement in our World Hacker Games™.
• $26,000 revenue was generated in December, 2023
• DC719, BSides Charleston and NatSecGirlSquad conferences chose us to build, host, and market their cybersecurity esports events
• Four companies paid to participate in the World Hacker Games™ 
• We have two filed and allowed patents, our branding is trademarked and we have copyrights to our software automation code and arenas
• The HACKERverse® community is now up to almost 5,000 members and continues to grow rapidly 
• Over 6,000 individuals have opted in to our mailing list
• We won $31K in non-dilutive funding from two pitch competitions

We Have Twelve Paying Customers

We’re a perfect fit for Series A through Series D size cybersecurity companies looking to market their products in an entirely new way. 

Our community of cybersecurity professionals and enthusiasts has almost 4,500 members on Discord. We're eager to unveil our proprietary AI driven community platform in Q2 2024.

Product Roadmap

Note: future projections are not guaranteed.

$20,000- Proprietary community build

$50,000- Vendor portal integration 

$150,000- AI build and integration

$300,000- Completion of PoC Platform and proprietary community build

Projections

2024

• Revenue: $101k
• Customers: 709 Buyers; 11 Vendors

2025

• Revenue: $608k
• YoY Growth: 598%
• Customers: 6,403 Buyers; 24 Vendors

2026

• Revenue: $3.5M
• YoY Growth: 582%
• Customers: 35,577 Buyers; 137 Vendors

Note: future projections are not guaranteed.

Picture a world where the HACKERverse® succeeds, where cybersecurity isn't condemned to the realm of IT personnel in the basement. In this reality, seasoned cybersecurity professionals and cybersecurity enthusiasts converge on an AI-powered self-service PoC platform that transcends traditional boundaries. Battles are fought to sharpen the skills that fortify our digital infrastructure.

In the HACKERverse®, the tools and knowledge needed to safeguard our digital existence become accessible to all. It's a place where the unsung voices of the cybersecurity community find recognition and celebration. 

In this envisioned world, the HACKERverse® creates a ripple effect. The digital threats that once cast a shadow over our lives are met with a united front. The fragility of our interconnected systems transforms into a resilient network fortified by an AI powered Proof of Concept platform combined with a community of cyber warriors. Safety and well-being are no longer precarious but assured by a collective commitment to cybersecurity excellence.

Welcome to a world where the balance tips in favor of those who champion vetting cybersecurity solutions that are proven to work, making our interconnected existence not just safer but truly empowering for all. Welcome to the HACKERverse®.

Join us, will you?