Okta launches $50 million VC fund and forms three new integration partnerships

Okta has unveiled a $50 million venture capital fund to invest in early-stage startups focussing on using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain technology for identity and authentication, and has also formed a trio of integration partnerships to expand its customer base and capabilities.

The new Okta Ventures fund was announced at the company’s Oktane event in San Francisco, TechCrunch reports, and its first investment is in blockchain-based digital identity platform Trusted Key, which has previously raised $3 million. The fund will invest in existing Okta partners and other companies, and provide one year of access to Okta products for use and integration.

The fund will chose 8 to 10 businesses per year for investments of $250,000 to $2 million, and the team managing the fund will be supported in the deal sourcing process by early backers Sequoia Andreessen Horowitz, and Greylock.

Low-code development platform provider Kony has partnered with Okta to provide API products, including Okta’s Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to Kony Quantum customers. Okta technology is also offered as a pre-certified and validated integration with the Kony DBX digital banking suite to secure enterprise solutions for banks and credit unions.

Online identity company Averon has integrated its patented Direct Autonomous Authentication (DAA) technology with Okta to give Okta users the option to use real-time mobile network signaling to verify users without passwords, user IDs, or one-time codes. DAA identifies the user’s SIM, and is an order of magnitude faster and easier than SMS and OTP applications, according to the announcement.

Strong enterprise authentication company Silverfort is integrating Okta MFA with its agentless authentication platform to extend secure authentication to sensitive systems in any environment, and to securely migrate on-premises assets to the cloud without using software agents or proxies. Silverfort says its next-generation authentication platform enables organizations to deploy secure authentication to systems such as homegrown applications, IT infrastructure, IoT devices, and dynamic IaaS environments often considered unprotectable with MFA and adaptive authentication.

Okta was one of the first cloud-only companies to go public, and has a market cap of approximately $9.6 billion.

Article Topics

authentication  |  biometrics  |  funding  |  Identity  |  Okta