Happy to report there is a pick up in funding and M&A activity across many sub-sectors within Infra Software. Let’s jump in –
Entrust in Exclusive Talks to Acquire Onfido
Onfido , a pioneer in identity verification leveraging computer vision, machine learning, and AI, is in exclusive talks to be acquired by Entrust, a provider of certification and verification services. The acquisition, still subject to negotiation, is anticipated to integrate Onfido’s technology into Entrust’s existing suite, establishing a comprehensive offering across the identity lifecycle.
Founded by Husayn Kassai during his time at Oxford University in 2012, Onfido has been a recipient of significant investments from top-tier firms including TPG, Salesforce, and Microsoft. The company experienced a surge in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, driven by the need for digital identity verification solutions as Enterprises scrambled to securely transition physical interactions to digital ones.
Entrust, whose history goes back to 1969 via Datacard Group, is a major player in trusted payments, identities, and data security. The acquisition would enrich Entrust’s identity solutions with Onfido’s biometric and document verification stack. Onfido’s technology is particularly relevant in Europe’s compliance-heavy environment, and its integration into Entrust’s suite would be aimed at strengthening digital trust on a global scale for financial services, government, and other sectors. Onfido, reports annually recurring revenue (ARR) of over $130 mm and about 500 employees.
This is a crowded field with many competing (and in many cases partnering) solutions that raised a few billion dollars from VCs and PE Growth funds between 2020 and 2022. Expect additional consolidation as winners emerge and the not-quite winners merge.
I’m keeping an eye on T. Rowe Price and Accel backed Socure (total capital raised: $745 mm), TCV backed Trulioo ($475 mm), Viking Global Investors backed ID.me ($407 mm), Apax Digital backed Prove ($251 mm), Founders Fund backed Persona ($217 mm), Great Hill Partners backed Jumio Corporation ($205 mm), Tiger Global backed Veriff ($192 mm), Long Ridge Partners backed AuthenticID ($100 mm) and Sumeru Equity Partners backed iProov($70 mm).
Silverfort Raises $116 Million for Identity Security Expansion
Silverfort, provider of a unified identity protection platform, has secured $116 mm in new financing from Brighton Park Capital, alongside existing investors Acrew Capital and Citi Ventures. This funding follows years of strong growth, with annual recurring revenues (ARR) consistently exceeding 100% year-over-year and a significant increase in customer base, including multiple Fortune 25 companies.
Silverfort aims to unify identity protection with a single platform that extends modern security measures to every identity in the organization, regardless of the environment or type of identity. This enables organizations to implement security controls like multi-factor authentication (MFA) and zero-trust access policies across all identities, including legacy systems, service accounts, and IT/OT infrastructure. Competitors include Okta, Ping Identity and Delinea.
Oasis Security Emerges from Stealth with $40 Million Funding
And finally on Identity, Oasis Security, an Israeli cybersecurity startup, has emerged from stealth armed with $40 million in funding for tackling non-human identity management within enterprise networks. This area is burgeoning due to the complex authentications necessary for machine-to-machine, app-to-app, and process-to-process interactions. Founded by Danny Brickman, who brings experience from the Israeli Defense Forces’ cybersecurity division, Oasis Security aims to solve a market need that is exponentially more complex and at higher risk of cyber-attack due to its scale and intricacy. Customers such as Chipotle and JLL have already begun implementing Oasis Security’s solutions. The successful funding round was led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Accel, Cyberstarts, Maple Capital, Guy Podjarny of Snyk and Michael Fey of Island.
A key player with significant backing tackling machine identity is Thoma Bravo portfolio company Venafi, a CyberArk Company.
ZEDEDA Secures $72 Million in Series C Round
ZEDEDA, provider of a platform to deliver applications and workloads to edge devices, announced the closure of a Series C funding round of $72 mm. The round was led by Smith Point Capital, LLC, founded and led by former Salesforce Co-CEO Keith Block. This latest funding brings the firm’s total capital raised to $127 mm.
ZEDEDA specializes in edge management and orchestration, providing solutions that streamline the deployment and management of edge infrastructure and applications. The company’s platform aims to make the deployment and management of of computing at the edge painless, open, and secure, extending the cloud experience to the edge. The company’s platform gives organizations better visibility, security, and control over their edge environments.
ZEDEDA has experienced significant momentum and growth, with annual recurring revenue increasing by more than 250% year-over-year. Customers include industrial behemoths Emerson and Rockwell Automation, both of which have standardized on ZEDEDA for their edge management needs.
Key competitors include Avassa, ZPE Systems, Scale Computing and recently funded Armada which I covered in a previous edition of InfraRead.
NinjaOne Announces $231.5 Million Series C Investment
NinjaOne, a cloud-native platform specializing in endpoint management, security, and visibility, closed a Series C funding round, securing $231.5 mm. The round was led by ICONIQ Growth, with participation from notable investors including Frank Slootman, Chairman and CEO of Snowflake, and Amit Agarwal, President of Datadog. This latest round brings NinjaOne’s total capital raised to over $260 mm. The company has demonstrated consistent growth, boasting a 70+ percent annual recurring revenue growth rate in 2023.
NinjaOne addresses the critical challenges associated with managing endpoints in organizations, offering automation solutions for endpoint management. The company’s platform caters to over 17,000 MSP and IT customers worldwide, providing them with visibility, security, and control over their endpoints. NinjaOne’s customer base includes prominent names such as NVIDIA, Nissan, and the University of Oxford. The platform has garnered praise for its effectiveness, earning the top spot in seven categories on G2, including endpoint management and remote monitoring and management.
NinjaOne’s competitors include Atera and Kaseya.
Jam Raises $8.9 Million in Series A Funding
As a former QA engineer, this one is close to my heard. Jam.dev a platform focused on improving the debugging process for engineers, recently secured $8.9 million in Series A funding, with Notable Capital leading the round. The round included participation from Figma Ventures as well as from Guillermo Rauch of Vercel and Suhail Doshi of Mixpanel .
Founded by former Cloudflare product managers, Jam addresses the common challenges engineers face in diagnosing and resolving technical issues efficiently. Its approach enables users of varying technical backgrounds to provide detailed troubleshooting information to engineers promptly, resulting in faster problem resolution and enhanced productivity. The company claims 10x growth over the last year to reach 75,000 users including at large Enterprises including Salesforce, Unilever, Autodesk, and Toast.
Gitar
Another DevTools announcement that caught my eye was the introduction of software development platform Gitar. Not a lot of information on timing and scope but they sound very ambitious. Founding team cut its teeth building the tooling stack at Uber. Announcement strikes me as a bit early given there is no news on funding, and as far as I can tell, nothing to evaluate or test. They are actively discussing pain pointswith future customers. Let’s keep an eye on this one.
End Notes
Once India’s most valuable company, ed-tech provider BYJU’S is in talks to raise $200 mm at an implied valuation of $220 – $250 mm. That’s a discount of 99% to its last raise at $22 billion in October 2022. The news from the company has not been encouraging.
Speaking of stratospheric valuations crashing down to earth, Adam Neumann wants to buy back WeWork; Bloomberg‘s Matt Levine calls it the funniest trade in the history of financial markets. Yeah!
Okta announced plans to lay off 400employees, about 7% of its workforce.
Docusign announced plans to lay off 6% of its workforce amidst reports of stalling negotiations in a take-private by Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman.
My day job is advising growing companies on fundraising and M&A. If you are an investor or entrepreneur I’d love to connect.