From: RegTech Analyst
Security startup Beyond Identity has picked up $30m in a new Series A round co-led by Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT) and New Enterprise Associates (NEA).
Two Silicon Valley veterans are the founders behind Beyond Identity: Jim Clark (pictured), who founded Netscape, and Tom Jermoluk, the founder of @Home Network.
The New York-based company is set up to put an end to poor password management. Beyond Identity aims to do that by delivering a secure solution for passwordless identity management that it claims requires no changes to security infrastructures, completely removes login friction for end users, and provides consumers with a much more secure alternative to password managers.
“Innovation should disrupt markets, not businesses,” said Forest Baskett, general partner at NEA. “Disruptive innovation needs to advance security without introducing friction or complexity. Netscape ‘accidentally’ created markets in access and authentication for aspects of identity that weren’t addressed at the time. By going back to fundamentals and extending the chain of T´trust, Jim, TJ, and team have created a truly disruptive innovation that advances both security and usability equally.”
Baskett will join the board together with KDT’s managing director Byron Knight and Hilarie Koplow-McAdams as part of the deal.
The news of the launch comes after the Verizon 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report found that 80% of hacking-related breaches still involve compromised and weak credentials. Multiple analyst firms tracking the market to defend against these attacks size the identity and access management (IAM) market in excess of $20bn, according to Beyond Identity.
“For too long we’ve pushed the burden of trust to centralised aggregation points – from enterprise directories to cloud services to website servers – each with varying levels of trustworthiness and a massively broad set of security postures and platforms,” said Clark, who also serves as chairman of Beyond Identity.
“While rational, it created more centralised risk and attractive targets, which attackers feasted on. New devices with biometrics and secure enclaves have given us a much stronger level of security that allows us to establish trust in, and with, each user. By decentralising to the perimeter, it supports the principles of zero trust and destroys attacker economics.”
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