The company’s total funding to date is $205 million. Investors include Evolution Equity Partners, Potentum Partners, Expanding Capital and HBAM.
The new funds will further expand research and development, and extend the company’s footprint into the Asia Pacific and Latin American markets.
“We think that we are going to be a significant disruptive platform in the cybersecurity businesses,” said Jermoluk. “There’s going to be a big move to zero trust, and we are the core foundation of what you need for zero trust.”
Zero trust allows users to verify on their phone or laptop. For example, if someone is trying to steal an identity, it will block them from using a separate device.
Beyond Identity is part of a larger movement away from individual passwords, helped by fingerprint and facial recognition technologies that are becoming standard for smartphones and laptops.
The cyber security industry in general had a “record smashing” year, according to Momentum Cyber, a financial advisory firm. Evaluating more than 3,500 cybersecurity companies over the course of 2021, the report states there was $77.5 billion invested in mergers and acquisitions, and $29.3 billion in price-to-earnings and venture capital investments.
Total financing value was up 138% over the previous year, the report said.
Websites use similar certificates as Beyond Identity to prove legitimate to users and other businesses.
For example, when a person buys a product on Amazon, the company goes to the credit card company to get paid. But instead of using a password or login to access Visa, the seller uses a digital certificate for verification. Beyond Identity is expanding that software for an individual user on a phone or laptop.
The technology allows a person to pick up their phone, use their finger or face to identify themself. The user is no longer stopped to log in again.
Talking to companies, Beyond Identity learned that the biggest hurdle over security is “user friction,” said Jermoluk. The reason multi-step authentication is so poorly adopted is that “people hate using it,” he said.
As a result, many people are foregoing the process, creating inroads for hackers to steal passwords, Jermoluk said.
“Typically, security tools are not the most sexy, exciting things that people are raving about, ‘Hey, this is a great tool,” said Mario Duarte, VP of Security at Snowflake, a cloud computing-based data warehousing company and a Beyond Identity customer. “People really dig it because they don’t have to worry about passwords anymore.”
Snowflake recently renewed for a three-year deal, Jermoluk said.
Beyond Identity gave up its Union Square office during the pandemic but has since returned and signed a four-year lease at 3 Park Ave., Jermoluk said. Workers are coming in and also working from home, in a hybrid model.
With the additional funding, the company is hiring, Jermoluk said. There are about 180 employees now, and by the end of this year he hopes to have 250 people.
Last spring the Biden Administration executed an order to shore up the government’s cyber security, including using multi-factor authentication that is phishing resistant.
“And that’s what we are. We are that,” said Jermoluk. “You know where that future is going.”
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