US-based online identity verification startup Beyond Identity launched on Tuesday with $30m in a series A round co-led by Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), a subsidiary of chemicals producer Koch Industries.
Venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) co-led the round, which was also backed by undisclosed additional investors. KDT managing director Byron Knight has taken a board seat at the company, as has Forest Baskett, a general partner at NEA.
Beyond Identity has developed a cloud-native identity management platform that eschews passwords in favour of asymmetric-key cryptography. Its product consists of a mobile app and cloud services and is intended for use by enterprises.
The company was co-founded by chairman Jim Clark, the co-founder of internet browser developer Netscape, and CEO Tom Jermoluk, a former general partner at VC firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.
Clark said: “For too long we have 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.
“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 (information security framework) Zero Trust and destroys attacker economics.”
