Venture capitalists and enterprises step-up in investment in digital identity solutions
Identity-as-a-service provider Auth0 has closed a US$103 million funding round led by Sapphire Ventures, taking its total funding to US$210 million. Auth0 said the cash injection “catapults the company into unicorn status with a valuation of more than US$1 billion.”
“Businesses cannot afford a data breach, and this investment is a key indicator that identity management is an industry worth investing in,” said Eugenio Pace, CEO and co-founder of Auth0. Founded in 2013, Auth0 says 7,000 companies now use its “highly customisable, developer-centric identity management platform”, securing more than 2.5 billion logins per month. The Bellevue, Washington-based company now employs almost 475 people, having added 316 employees in the past two years.
Noting that start-ups developing digital identity solutions are attracting more and more venture capital, VentureBeat reported that New York-based Socure raised US$30 million in February for its cloud-based identity verification and fraud prevention solution, while identity verification provider Onfido secured US$50 million in April and identity and credentials verification firm Evident has just raised US$20 million.
Separately, Mastercard and Samsung Electronics said they will work together to enable people to conveniently and securely verify their digital identity using Samsung smartphones for both in-person and online interactions. Ajay Bhalla, president of cyber & intelligence at Mastercard, said: “Our collaboration with Samsung advances a digital identity solution that is bound to a trusted device – the mobile phone – which is used by millions of people every day.”
For more information, please see the Auth0 blog post and the Mastercard press release