What LayerOne does

LayerOne is a volunteer-run, nonprofit information security conference based in Pasadena, California, founded in 2006. The organization runs an annual weekend event (Saturday-Sunday) at the Pasadena Hilton Hotel, with an optional Training Day on the preceding Friday. The product portfolio centers on the main conference plus an extensive set of recurring sub-products: hands-on villages (Lockpicking, Hardware Hacking, RaiseMe Career, Chillout), competitive contests (Capture the Flag, The Intercept Hardware CTF, Soldering Olympics, Hebocon Robot Battles, Tamper-Evident King of the Hill, Demo Party, Hack My VM, Bricks in the Air, FAST Farm Store, AI CTF), and a single-track speaking schedule. The conference features an open-source electronic badge with published hardware and firmware repositories on GitHub, plus a custom LayerOne Demo Board (PIC24F-based, 96K RAM, 256K Flash) used for the demoscene contest.

The business model is a hybrid event/community model with three revenue streams: attendee registration fees (early-bird and door pricing tiers, dollar amounts not publicly disclosed), corporate sponsorships (OWASP Los Angeles, ISSA Los Angeles, ISSA SoCal, No Starch Press, Adaptable Connections, and Qualcomm for CTF operations), and a $200 speaker honorarium cost center. The conference is funded through these streams with no disclosed revenue, no institutional funding, and no parent company. LayerOne was cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19, held virtually via Twitch and Discord in 2021, and returned to in-person from 2022 onward, with the most recent event (LayerOne 2026) held May 23-24, 2026.

LayerOne serves a primary customer segment of hackers, cybersecurity professionals, and hardware security practitioners seeking hands-on learning and community networking in Southern California. Secondary segments include career changers and job seekers in information security (served by the RaiseMe Career Village), students and beginners (served by beginner-friendly workshops and contests), and sponsors seeking visibility within the Los Angeles security community. Distribution is entirely direct via the conference website and on-site registration, with no resellers. The LayerOne Demo Board is also distributed through the third-party Tindie marketplace.

Note: The provided firmographic describes LayerOne as a telecommunications services company offering voice/data cabling and e-commerce optimization, which is inconsistent with the overwhelming primary-source evidence describing an information security conference. This analysis is grounded in the security conference identity, which is consistently supported across all detailed sources.

Name

LayerOne

Legal name

LayerOne

Website

https://layerone.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2006

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

LayerOne is a volunteer-run, nonprofit annual information security conference in Pasadena, California, featuring hands-on villages, hacking contests, and single-track presentations serving hackers, security professionals, students, and career changers.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Information Security Conferences and Events

NAICS

Convention and Trade Show Organizers (561920), Business Associations (813910)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro primary industry

Sponsorship, Exhibitor & Partnership Management Services (THAHACAK)

akta.pro secondary industries

Training, Workshops & Certification Events (MPAGAGAJ), Speech & Debate Judging, Tabulation & Tournament Services (EDAMAOAO)

Keywords

• Information security conference
• Hacker community events
• Hands-on security training
• Capture the flag competition
• Cybersecurity meetups

Headquarters

HQ city

Dallas

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Operations, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Conference Registration Fees: Attendees pay registration fees to attend LayerOne. Pricing has early-bird and door-rate tiers. Registration includes conference badge, access to all presentations, contests, villages, breakfast on both days, and a banquet dinner & game night on Saturday. No registration fee information (price points) is publicly disclosed in the source material.
2. Sponsorships: Organizations sponsor the event in exchange for recognition. Sponsors listed include OWASP Los Angeles, ISSA-LA, ISSA SoCal, No Starch Press, and Adaptable Connections. The conference also offers vendor booths in the main hall.
3. Speaker Honoraria and Free Entry: Speakers receive a $200 honorarium and free conference entry as an incentive to submit talks. This is a cost center rather than a revenue stream.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

LayerOne produces an annual two-day information security conference in Pasadena, California, centered on a single track of technical presentations and a wide set of hands-on villages (Lockpicking, Hardware Hacking, RaiseMe Career, Chillout) and competitive contests (Capture the Flag, Soldering Olympics, Hebocon Robot Battles, The Intercept Hardware CTF, Tamper-Evident King of the Hill, Demo Party, Hack My VM, FAST Farm Store, Bricks in the Air) with on-site HAM radio license testing and a Saturday banquet. Attendees pay registration fees (early-bird and door tiers) and the event is supported by corporate sponsorships and a $200 speaker honorarium, with no separate enterprise product offering.

Product overview

LayerOne is an annual Los Angeles-area information security conference held at the Pasadena Hilton Hotel (originally Sheraton Gateway LAX, 2017), organized around a single-track speaking schedule and a wide array of hands-on villages and contests. The core conference runs over a weekend (Saturday–Sunday) with an optional Training Day on the preceding Friday. The product portfolio includes the main conference itself plus multiple recurring village and contest sub-products: the Lockpicking Village (physical security training and competition), Hardware Hacking Village (electronics, soldering, badge hacking), Capture the Flag (Jeopardy-style hacking contest), The Intercept (hardware-focused CTF), Hebocon Robot Battles (sumo-style robot competition), Tamper-Evident King of the Hill (physical tamper testing), Demo Party (demoscene audio/video programming contest), Soldering Olympics (competitive soldering), RaiseMe Career Village (career development), Chillout Room (gaming lounge), Ham Radio Testing (amateur license certification), Bricks in the Air (LEGO aircraft security, new 2026), FAST Farm Store (web app security, new 2026), Hack My VM (red/blue team VM exercises, new 2026), and AI CTF (AI/ML security, 2024). An electronic conference badge is also a notable recurring product, with open-source hacking repositories published on GitHub.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• LayerOne Conference (annual event)

Quantifiable outcome

• 2026: CTF competition with top team Layer 8 scoring 8145 pts; 2026: Soldering Olympics had 10 participants in final round; 2026: ~20 people completed the Impressioning Clinic in the Lockpicking Village; 2026: 7 people passed HAM license exams.

Named customers1 record

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration7 records

Feature1 record

Partnerships

15 partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• QualcommcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2026Qualcomm has been the consistent host of LayerOne's Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions for multiple years (2018, 2023, 2025, 2026). The Qualcomm Cybersecurity team creates CTF challenges, runs infrastructure, operations, testing, art/theming, and overall operations for the event.
• Retia.iocoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerRetia.io has been a recurring partner hosting soldering, WiFi, and Meshtastic workshops in the Hardware Hacking Village at LayerOne 2026. They also hosted the 'DeFlockathon' contest at the 2026 event.
• Pendula LabscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPendula Labs (m0zy) has been the recurring host of the Soldering Olympics contest at LayerOne since its debut in 2024, providing increasingly difficult soldering boards and serving as judge.
• Cal State Fullerton Offensive Security Society (OSS)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCal State Fullerton's OSS group hosted the 'Hack My VM' event at LayerOne 2026 — a hands-on red team/blue team cybersecurity competition using intentionally vulnerable virtual machines. OSS members (Vix, Stephen Jr, Gia, and Alex) built and ran the event infrastructure.
• Cal Poly Pomona FAST Cybersecurity Research TeamminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCal Poly Pomona's FAST team hosted the 'FAST Farm Store' event at LayerOne 2026 — a hands-on web application security demonstration using a farm store metaphor for teaching common web vulnerabilities. Geared toward beginners and AppSec-curious attendees.
• DEF CON Maritime Hacking VillageminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe DEF CON Maritime Hacking Village contributed to the RaiseMe Career Village at LayerOne 2026, providing presentations and consulting sessions alongside the regular RaiseMe volunteers.
• Pasadena City College Leadership in Technology (LIT)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPasadena City College's Leadership in Technology group (Kody Kinzie and Brandon Paiz) designed and hosted the 'Chicken Man' WiFi CTF game at LayerOne 2019 — a low-cost WPA2 password cracking educational game using ESP8266 microcontrollers.
• Aries SecurityminorGTM or Marketing PartnerAries Security sponsored and ran the 'Cyber Gauntlet' (Packet Inspector and Packet Detective events) at LayerOne 2021, using the Capture The Packet engine to teach network security and analysis skills in a hands-on environment.
• Null Space Labs (032.la)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNull Space Labs, a Los Angeles hackerspace, has been a recurring partner providing volunteers for the Hardware Hacking Village (surface mount soldering instruction), hosting Demo Board classes, and running badge hacking support. Key volunteers from NSL have contributed to multiple years of events.
• 23B Shop HackerspaceminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe 23B Shop Hackerspace hosted the Sunday afterparty for LayerOne 2019, providing a venue for post-conference social networking and community building.
• OWASP Los Angeles ChapterminorGTM or Marketing PartnerOWASP Los Angeles is listed as a sponsor of LayerOne 2026, with a logo displayed on the conference website sponsors page.
• ISSA Los Angeles ChapterminorGTM or Marketing PartnerISSA Los Angeles is listed as a sponsor of LayerOne 2026, with a logo displayed on the conference website sponsors page.
• ISSA SoCal (Southern California Chapter)minorGTM or Marketing PartnerISSA SoCal is listed as a sponsor of LayerOne 2026, with a logo displayed on the conference website sponsors page.
• No Starch PressminorGTM or Marketing PartnerNo Starch Press is listed as a sponsor of LayerOne 2026, with a logo displayed on the conference website sponsors page. No Starch Press is a publisher of hacker-friendly technical books.
• Adaptable ConnectionsminorGTM or Marketing PartnerAdaptable Connections is listed as a sponsor of LayerOne 2026, with a logo displayed on the conference website sponsors page.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• THOTCON: THOTCON is a Chicago-based, non-commercial, single-track information security conference run by volunteers, structurally very similar to LayerOne in size, ethos, and hands-on content.
• HOPE (Hackers On Planet Earth): HOPE is a long-running community hacker conference organized by 2600 Magazine, combining talks, workshops, and hands-on villages in a non-commercial community format directly comparable to LayerOne's volunteer-run model.
• CarolinaCon: CarolinaCon is a long-running community hacker conference in the Southeastern U.S. featuring talks, CTFs, and villages — a regional peer that competes for attendees and speakers in the same grassroots security-conference category as LayerOne.
• CypherCon: CypherCon is a Milwaukee-based community security conference with a similar mix of talks, villages, and contests, targeting the same hands-on enthusiast audience that LayerOne serves.
• ShmooCon: ShmooCon is a small, single-track East Coast hacker conference (~2,200 attendees) known for technical talks and community intimacy. It is the closest analog to LayerOne in format, scale, and community-driven ethos, differing primarily by geography.
• Security BSides: BSides is a global network of community-driven, volunteer-organized information security conferences that mirror LayerOne's grassroots, low-cost, hands-on model — including BSides LA, which directly competes for the same Southern California InfoSec audience.

Broad incumbents

• Black Hat: Black Hat is a major commercial security conference with deep technical briefings and trainings, drawing the same InfoSec professional demographic LayerOne targets — a broader incumbent that competes for the same attendee and sponsor attention.
• DEF CON: DEF CON is the largest annual hacker and information security conference in the U.S. While far larger than LayerOne, it is the defining reference point for the security-conference category LayerOne operates in, and LayerOne's villages (Hardware Hacking, Lockpicking, CTF) are directly inspired by DEF CON's village model.
• RSA Conference: RSA Conference is the largest commercial information security conference, serving as the industry anchor that LayerOne's attendees and sponsors also participate in. It is comparable as the dominant incumbent in the broader security-conference category, though LayerOne positions against it on price and accessibility.

Others

• OWASP Foundation: OWASP is a nonprofit application security organization that runs its own global and chapter-level events; its Los Angeles chapter is a LayerOne sponsor. OWASP is comparable as an adjacent nonprofit community organizing security education and events at a chapter level.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/layer_one
• GitHubgithub.com/charlie-x/LayerOne_2024
• YouTubetwitch.tv/layeroneconference
• Facebookfacebook.com/LayerOne
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/layerone-llc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about LayerOne