ForgeRock nabs $93.5M for its ID management platform, gears up next for an IPO

For better or worse, digital identity management services - the process of identifying and authenticating users on networks to access services - has become a ubiquitous part of interacting on the internet, all the more so in the recent weeks as we have been asked to carry out increasingly more of our lives online.

Used correctly, they help ensure that it's really you logging into your online banking service; used badly, you feel like you can't innocently watch something silly on YouTube without being watched yourself. Altogether, they are a huge business: worth $16 billion today according to Gartner but growing at upwards of 30% and potentially as big as $30.5 billion by 2024, according to the latest forecasts.

Now, a company called ForgeRock, which has built a platform that is used to help make sure that those accessing services really are who they say are, and help organizations account for how their services are getting used, is announcing a big round of funding to continue expanding its business amid a huge boost in demand.

The company is today announcing that it has raised $93.5 million in funding, a Series E it will use to continue expanding its product and take it to its next step as a business, specifically investing in R&D, cloud services and its ForgeRock Identity Cloud, and general global business development.

The round is being led by Riverwood Capital, and Accenture Ventures, as well as previous investors Accel, Meritech Capital, Foundation Capital and KKR Growth, also participated.

Fran Rosch, the startup's CEO, said in an interview that this will likely be its final round of funding ahead of an IPO, although given the current static of affairs with a lot of M&A, there is no timing set for when that might happen. (Notably, the company had said its last round of funding - $88 million in 2017 - would be its final ahead of an IPO, although that was under a different CEO.)

This Series E brings the total raised by the company to $230 million. Rosch confirmed it was raised as a material upround, although he declined to give a valuation. For some context, the company's last post-money valuation was $646.50 million per PitchBook, and so this round values the company at more than $730 million.

ForgeRock has annual recurring revenues of more than $100 million, with annual revenues also at over $100 million, Rosch said. It operates in an industry heavy with competition, with some of the others vying for pole position in the various aspects of identity management including Okta, LastPass, Duo Serurity and Ping Identity.

But within that list it has amassed some impressive traction. In total it has 1,100 enterprise customers, who in turn collectively manage 2 billion identities through ForgeRock's platform, with considerably more devices also authenticated and managed on top of that.

Customers include the likes of the BBC - which uses ForgeRock to authenticate and log not just 45 million users but also the devices they use to access its iPlayer on-demand video streaming service - Comcast, a number of major banks, the European Union and several other government organizations. ForgeRock was originally founded in Norway about a decade ago, and while it now has its headquarters in San Francisco, it still has about half its employees and half its customers on the other side of the Atlantic.

Currently ForgeRock provides services to businesses related to identity management including password and username creation, identity governance, directory services, privacy and consent gates, which they in turn provide both to their human customers as well as to devices accessing their services, but we're in a period of change right now when it comes to identity management. It stays away from direct-to-consumer password management services and Rosch said there are no plans to move into that area.

These days, we've become more aware of privacy and data protection. Sometimes, it's been because of the wrong reasons, such as giant security breaches that have leaked some aspect of our personal information into a giant database, or because of a news story that has uncovered how our information has unwittingly been used in 'legit' commercial schemes, or other ways we never imagined it would.

Those developments, combined with advances in technology, are very likely to lead us to a place over time where identity management will become significantly more shielded from misuse. These could include more ubiquitous use of federated identities, "lockers" that store our authentication credentials that can be used to log into services but remain separate from their control, and potentially even applications of blockchain technology.

All of this means that while a company like ForgeRock will continue to provide its current services, it's also investing big in what it believes will be the next steps that we'll take as an industry, and society, when it comes to digital identity management - something that has had a boost of late.

"There are a lot of interesting things going on, and we are working closely behind the scenes to flesh them out," Rosch said. "For example, we're looking at how best to break up data links where we control identities to get access for a temporary period of time but then pull back. It's a powerful trend that is still about four to five years out. But we are preparing for this, a time when our platform can consume decentralised identity, on par with logins from Google or Facebook today. That is an interesting area."

He notes that the current market, where there has been an overall surge for all online services as people are staying home to slow the speed of the coronavirus pandemic, has seen big boosts in specific verticals.

Its largest financial services and banking customers have seen traffic up by 50%, and digital streaming has been up by 300%, and government services have also been spiking, in part because many services that hadn't been online are now developing online presences or seeing much more traffic from digital channels than before. Unsurprisingly, its customers in hotel and travel, as well as retail, have seen drops, he added.

"ForgeRock's comprehensive platform is very well-positioned to capitalize on the enormous opportunity in the Identity & Access Management market," said Jeff Parks, co-founder and managing partner of Riverwood Capital, in a statement. "ForgeRock is the leader in solving a wide range of workforce and consumer identity use cases for the Global 2000 and is trusted by some of the largest companies to manage millions of user identities. We have seen the growth acceleration and are thrilled to partner with this leadership team." Parks is joining the board with this round.