https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2022/02/01/billionaire-facebook-investor-peter-thiel-secretly-funded-a-cyber-warfare-startup-that-hacked-whatsapp/?sh=1971968c5600&utm_source=ForbesMainTwitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflowForbesMainTwitter
As Israeli spyware dealer NSO Group is facing renewed scrutiny over the abuse of its WhatsApp hacking tools, an American startup could also reportedly bypass the messaging app’s security. That startup was secretly backed by the millions of billionaire Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel.
Since its founding in 2017 in San Diego, startup Boldend has kept a low profile. That’s because, according to two company insiders, it has to, with a mission to create tools that assist in cyber warfare missions with a focus on automation. It only has one customer, one that demands secrecy: the U.S. government.
Though it’s received little press, it did make it into the New York Times last weekend, right at the end of a feature on beleaguered Israeli spyware business NSO Group. Boldend was reported to have developed a capability to hack WhatsApp, though it was closed off in a security update in January 2021, according to a presentation made to defense giant Raytheon. It was the first time its “cyber warfare” software had been given any public exposure beyond a partnership with Raytheon, announced in 2020 when the pair said they would be building “automated products that accelerate the development and deployment of cyber tools for operations and systems critical to national security.” They also announced they would be integrating a Boldend technology called Origen into Raytheon’s tech development pipeline. A software-as-a-service tech, which appears to be a development platform that’s focused on security and quickly spinning up cyber products.
There was something else that piqued people’s attention when it came to Boldend, though. In that same presentation to Raytheon, a slide claimed that Boldend was backed by Founders Fund, the investment vehicle of Peter Thiel. It was a fact that had not been disclosed despite the company previously announcing other investors. Two sources familiar with the company confirmed to Forbes Boldend was indeed funded by Thiel’s company, with one claiming the firm put in more than $10 million that was injected in the very early years of the business, though they couldn’t provide a specific number. (Neither Founders Fund nor Boldend had returned emails requesting comment.)
This might seem ironic: Thiel, one of Facebook’s best-known financial backers, is now an investor of a company that has tried to hack the technology of a Facebook-owned company. Not that Thiel is afraid of investing in companies that risk breaking Facebook’s rules in order to assist law enforcement: Founders Fund backed ClearView AI, a facial recognition company that scraped Facebook to fill a huge database of faces that police could later use in investigations.
Peter Thiel an investor in Boldend cyber warfare startup.
Peter Thiel is now an investor in two organizations—cybertools manufacturer Boldend and facial recognition provider ClearView AI—that are helping the U.S. government carry out online investigations.
John Lamparski/Getty Images
Straddling offensive and defensive cyber
By extension, Thiel is also now an investor in an anti-ransomware company, Halcyon, which is fully owned by Boldend, sources close to the companies said. Indeed, the Halcyon.ai website lists Founders Fund as a backer, alongside other Boldend investor Ron Gula.
In straddling both the offensive and defensive worlds, Boldend is positioning itself as one of a handful of “full spectrum cyber” businesses focused on protecting and attacking both government and corporate clients. A handful of startups in this niche field have emerged in recent years, seeking financial backing from venture capitalists. These include QOMPLX, a $1.4 billion-valued cybersecurity startup with $96 million in revenue, and Blackhorse Solutions, which had raised $9 million before being acquired by Parsons Corp. for $200 million in summer 2021. Both are clustered in Virginia’s defense contractor belt.
BlackHorse, which has many more public government contracts than either Boldend or QOMPLX, promises to bring together “cyber, electromagnetic warfare and information operations for Department of Defense and Intelligence Community customers.” Previously called White Canvas Group, Forbes obtained contracts for the company to research the dark Web for the U.S. military and to train the United States Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command on how to leverage open source intelligence on the Web. It has scored numerous multi-million-dollar contracts over the last half decade with the Pentagon, including a $90 million deal to provide “automation solutions in support of U.S. Cyber Command.”
Though two sources with knowledge of the company said it wasn’t typical of Boldend to develop exploits like it did for WhatsApp, and that the one described by the New York Times may never have been used, if it is tasked with doing so again, the startup could be in competition with other offensive-focused businesses in trying to crack the security of encrypted apps like WhatsApp for customers. It can now class itself a rival of Israel’s NSO Group and American-backed startups like Paragon. The latter, as Forbes reported last year, was focused on trying to break into messaging apps like Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram. It has received financial support from Boston-based Battery Ventures to do that job.
Boldend remains a small company, with only $13 million raised to date and a valuation of $31 million, according to Pitchbook data. But as one of the company’s investors (who asked to remain anonymous as they weren’t authorized to speak on record) told Forbes, Halcyon has the potential to be much more profitable, given it could sell a commercial product to thousands of companies, not just a handful of Western intelligence agencies.
Like many of Halcyon’s new employees, many staffers at Boldend hail from Cylance, a defensive security company that claims to use artificial intelligence to secure networks. That includes CEO and founder Jon Miller. Cylance was acquired by BlackBerry in 2019.
Boldend does not court publicity and its two-page website reveals little beyond: “Our solutions blend cutting-edge electronic warfare components with next-generation cyber operations.” The “products” page requires the visitor to have a password.
When Forbes reached out to Boldend CEO Miller, he passed Forbes on to his PR team, adding that the company’s work solely supporting the U.S. government required discretion. The PR team hadn’t responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.