Cybersecurity is really a problem associated with digital transformation. Legacy systems are not equipped to protect your data from the new security threats emerging every day. Enterprises used to have their own software systems but their abilities are limited. This is especially true when it comes to access management and authentication. Fortunately, identity management companies remove the burden of managing identities and provide companies with updated solutions. Here is a list of five such dynamic startups that have raised the most funding in 2018 and 2019.
1. Payfone: $23M
Payfone is all about identity certainty. They do for digital security what Amazon does for online shopping and Uber does for hailing taxis. They make the customer authentication process simple and effortless besides giving transparency and control over how and where their digital identities are used. Their popular digital identity authentication network helps the world’s leading banks, insurance, brokerages, hospitals, and technology companies prevent digital identity theft and transact without insecurity.
Payfone’s latest funding was raised in February 2018. It is a Series F round and the company raised $23 million in that round alone. The company has raised a total of $93.6 million in funding in over 8 rounds.
Payfone competes with companies like ShoCard, CARDFREE, and ThreatMetrix. The company was making significantly frequent headlines over the last year. In March 2018, Payfone joined hands with higi unveiled a healthcare engagement technology with a network of 11,000 health kiosks. Consumers can track their health data securely through this network. Payfone is a pioneer in replacing passwords with two-factor authentication. In April 2018, Payfone partnered with EnStream (an identity authentication service provider for third-party applications) to kill passwords with federated digital identity platform.
Their new service allows customers to log in to a lot of applications just by using a mobile app. Customers don’t have to hassle with remembering passwords anymore. In February 2019, the company partnered with GSMA to provide companies in Spain with fraud-free login experiences. In May 2018, Payfone hired W. Ross Ashley, a former Air Force intelligence officer and assistant administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to be the VP of government affairs and federal markets.
2. Socure: $30M
Socure is a New York-based company that entrusts businesses with next-generation security. Socure is among the leading high-assurance digital identity verification companies. The company’s SaaS solution prevents identity thefts and fraudulent activities.
Today, mobile devices are increasingly used for account openings and online transactions. The static credit bureau data to digital identity verification are resulting in more fraud. So multifactor authentication with machine learning techniques is used to improve security. Socure’s predictive analytics platform applies machine learning to trusted online/offline sources like emails, phones, IP addresses, social media, and GLBA/DPPA data to authenticate identities on a real-time basis. Socure also leverages biometrics and data intelligence from email, mobile phones, social media, and the broader Internet for more secure authentication. Socure’s Authentic Identity Agent (Aida) bot detects a customer’s identity from their digital footprints to calculate the risk and correlation scores. This enables businesses to increase online transaction rates and also it reduces fraud.
In February, Socure raised a whopping $30 million from a Series C round. The funding round was conducted by scale venture partners and the capital will be used to accelerate company operations, marketing and extend their footprint in the U.S. The company has raised $61.9 million in funding over seven rounds and generates $6.2 million in revenue annually.
3. Onfido: £4.52M in Series C
The London-based company, Onfido, is on a mission to help businesses build trust in the digitizing world. It leverages AI technology to digitally verify people’s identities. It develops an AI that sorts true IDs from false and then compares it against facial biometrics. This way the company helps businesses onboard more customers, more securely. The technology brings more users onto the platform, reducing fraud risks at onboarding and beyond.
The company’s AI technology uses RVshare to reduce fraud and build trust among its community of vehicle lenders and renters via a new partnership. The identity verification company has also partnered with BitPay to allow users to make payments in bitcoin. Onfido’s AI-based KYC processes make sign up process a breeze. Companies like Volopa, Remitly, and Indiegogo have chosen Onfido to build trust within its user base.
This March, Onfido raised £4.52 million in its Series C funding round led by Augumentum Fintech. The company has raised an amount of $65.6 million in funding over eight rounds. Onfido generates $1.5 in million annually.
4. OneLogin: $100M in Series D
OneLogin unified access management (UAM) brings on-premises and cloud apps under a single console and provides centralized management with unified security policies. The UAM platform uses single sign-on and a cloud directory to allow organizations to manage access for on-premises and cloud applications. The platform also comes with user provisioning, multifactor authentication, and lifecycle management.
This March, the identity and access management (IAM) provider GS Labs joined OneLogin’s certified implementation partner ecosystem to widen the reach of its UAM solution. Combined, the two companies will eliminate manual onboarding and off-boarding, provide enterprises with automated user provisioning, while improving governance and compliance.
OneLogin generates $33.5 annually and has over 2,000 customers worldwide including Airbnb, Uber, Facebook, Airbus, Du Pont, Royal Mail, Herman Miller, and Dun & Bradstreet. This January, the company raised a whopping $100 million in its Series D round, which brought the total funding amount to $175 million.
5. Auth0: $55M in Series D
Auth0 operates on a cloud-based identity platform for developers to provides a web-scale cloud solution. It enables users to single sign-on for applications running on various platforms with various identity providers. It comes with APIs and tools that enable developers to eliminate the authentication issues of their applications. JavaScript is used in between and customize the authentication and authorization pipelines.
It connects their applications and APIs to their database of users and passwords. Auth0 platform allows the person to authenticate to an active directory, LDAP, SAML, Integrated Windows Authentication, Google Apps, Salesforce, and other intrusion detection and prevention systems (IdPs) without the need to configure the firewall. It can add and remove accounts of users, modify profiles and authorization attributes, and identify root cause user login issues.
In May 2018, Auth0 raised $55 million from a Series D round. Auth0 has raised a total fund of $109.3M in over five rounds. They’re backed up by some leading banks, venture firms Bessemer Venture Partners and Sapphire Ventures.
Identity management companies: Still growing
It is very unlikely for enterprises to become 100 percent cloud-based today and hybrid is the reality. This means having to deal with multiple access management systems. By providing a centralized platform to manage all the accesses, identity and access management companies have become real problem-solvers and their rapid growth is totally reasonable. The global identity management system market is growing at an astounding CAGR of 16 percent. Factors like technological advancement, global players in developed nations such as the U.S. and Canada have made North America the most dominating market for identity management. Europe stands as the second biggest market. Asia-Pacific is also flaunting a positive trend especially due to the growing economy of India and China. The market is expected to hit $24 billion by 2022. Identity management, and particularly the startups mentioned here, are ones to keep a close watch on in 2019.
Featured image: Pixabay
