1Kosmos targets growing enterprise biometrics demand with $57M series B

1Kosmos has raised $57 million in a series B credit and equity funding round and plans to use the capital to meet growing market demand for identity-first enterprise security with its live biometrics, verified digital identities and phishing-resistant, passwordless authentication.

The equity part of the funding round was led by Forgepoint Capital, Oquirrh Ventures, and Origami Capital. Carahsoft Founder and President Craig Abod, NextEra Energy Ventures, Gula Tech Adventures and members of 1Kosmos’ management team also participated in the round. A $10 million line of credit from Bridge Bank is also included.

Added to the company’s $15 million series A funding round in 2021, 1Kosmos has now raised $72 million in total. Forgepoint also led that round.

1Kosmos cites recent attacks by groups like Scattered Spider and North Korean “shadow IT employees” as evidence of the critical weakness social engineering and fake credentials represent in many organization’s defenses.

The company plans to help businesses around the world address this weakness with direct and channel sales to the North American, EMEA and APAC markets, as well as deepen its integrations with leading identity and access management (IAM), CIAM, PAM and zero trust platforms.

“Identity has become the first step in the kill chain. This investment allows us to strengthen the proactive controls organizations need to prevent impersonation-based attacks — whether it’s a sophisticated hacking group or a state-sponsored developer hiding in plain sight,” says Hemen Vimadalal, CEO of 1Kosmos. “1Kosmos identity verification is the only practical solution that can be quickly deployed in a matter of hours to effectively combat this threat.”

Vimadalal says in a blog post that series B rounds are typically closer to $38 million. He also refers to the $25 billion acquisition of CyberArk by Palo Alto Networks as “further evidence of a turning point in Identity,” in which cybersecurity incumbents recognize digital identity verification as the new security perimeter.

The company combines ID proofing, identity verification and authentication in a single platform and stores encrypted PII on a private, permissioned blockchain.

The new funding will allow 1Kosmos to engage with system integrators and government entities to move into the healthcare, manufacturing and education sectors, according to the blog post. Vimadalal says 1Kosmos intends to expand its engineering team, as well as expanding its go-to-market efforts globally and building more partnerships.

1Kosmos was among biometrics providers selected for a 10-year $194.5 million blanket purchasing agreement with the U.S. Login.gov program to supply next-generation identity proofing, along with partner Carahsoft. The company says its revenues tripled in 2024.

“With all the attention on business efficiency in both the public and private sectors, knowing who is on your network is an impactful way to gain efficiency quickly,” said Craig Abod, Founder and President of Carahsoft. “1Kosmos deterministically proves identity. There’s no guessing or predicting involved. This saves time and drastically simplifies identity and access management.”

Earlier this year, 1Kosmos passed a biometric presentation attack detection (PAD) assessment to iBeta’s Level 2. The company also has a slew of other certification, including FIDO2, NIST 800-63-3, ISO/IEC 27001, SOC II Type2, FedRAMP High and the UK DIATF.

Article Topics

1Kosmos  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  funding  |  identity proofing  |  investment