Identity and security solutions vary across the market, targeting both individuals and organisations. Investors are constantly on the lookout for secure products and services that meet regulatory requirements while allowing simple customer on-boarding. This article gives an overview of active stakeholders in 2017 and activity so far in 2018.
To provide a better overview of the identity & security ecosystem, we survey significant investments on the global and local levels separately.
Worldwide
In a Series D round led by Accel, with participation from KKR, Meritech Capital Partners and Foundation Capital, identity management start-up Forgerock raised USD 88 million.
Signified, who develops fraud protection technology for e-commerce, raised USD 56 million in series C investment led by Bain Capital Ventures. Additional participants were Menlo Ventures and American Express.
A consortium of Canadian banks including the Bank of Montreal, CIBC, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, TD Bank and credit union network Desjardins collectively invested USD 27 million in SecureKey for the development of a digital identity tool.
AimBrain, a start-up that offers biometric authentication against financial fraud, raised GBP 4 million in Series A round led by BGF Ventures, with participation from Episode 1, Entrepreneur First, and a number of angel investors including Simon Rozas, Chris Mairs and Charles Songhurst.
In a series A round led by RRE Ventures with participation from RTP Ventures, Boldstart Ventures and Mesh Ventures, HYPR landed USD 8 million. An additional USD 2 million were also invested in HYPR’s biometrics operations by Mastercard.
SecuredTouch, a behaviour-based identification solutions developer, raised USD 3.5 million in a seed round led by the RDC fund. Other participants were Eshbol Ventures, Wellborn Ventures and Swarth Group funds.
Dutch market
In its second funding round, electronic signature company Signaturit raised a EUR 2.8 million investment from Banco Sabadell, Nero Ventures, Faraday Venture Partners, Cube Investments, Bonsai Venture Capital and the European Innovation Council.
Cybersprint, who offers a digital risk monitoring platform, raised EUR 700k in a seed round. Investors were InnovationQuarter and angels were Lennard Zwart and Arthur van der Wees.
SIDN acquired a majority stake in Connectis, a supplier of secure log-in solutions.
In a series B funding led by Keen Ventures Partners, EclecticIQ raised EUR 14 million. The company offers cyber threat intelligence solutions.
Zivver, a secure organisational environment provider, obtained a EUR 3 million investment from venture capital investor henQ.
2018
While less than two months have passed since the beginning of this year, noticeable funding rounds already took place, such as when BehavioSec raised USD 17.5 million in Series B investment led by Trident Capital Cybersecurity. Cisco Investments and ABN AMRO also joined the round alongside existing investors Octopus Ventures and Conor Venture Partners.
Signicat, an identity assurance provider, secured EUR 1.6 million in phase two funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme.
As can be seen throughout 2017, identity and security solutions were key in the investment strategy of large institutions and VCs. Cyber attacks and digital identity thefts are becoming increasingly sophisticated, while the regulatory environment continues to change. Identity and security fintechs will face both great challenges and opportunities in the current year, trying to maintain and surpass the investment momentum from the previous year.
By Guy Tocker, Research Analyst at Holland FinTech
