Transmit Security has raised a whopping $543 million in Series A funding to back its efforts to replace passwords with biometric authentication.
The funding round gives the company a pre-money valuation of $2.2 billion, and Transmit claims in the announcement it is the largest Series A round ever for a cybersecurity company. It was led by Insight Partners and General Atlantic, with additional investment from Cyberstarts, Geodesic, SYN Ventures, Vintage, and Artisanal Ventures.
Transmit intends to use the funds to increase its market reach and expand its primary business functions, invest in growing the organization in key geographies, and generally accelerate its mission to make passwordless authentication ubiquitous.
Those primary functions so far include Transmit’s BindID, which uses native device face or fingerprint biometrics for authentication across and channel or device without dedicated hardware or software, and was launched earlier this year.
In the announcement, Transmit cites statistics on consumer’s distaste for complicated login processes and the likelihood they will abandon a transaction rather than go through credential recovery or password resetting. The high cost of password resets and contribution of weak passwords to data breaches and account takeovers are also noted.
“Passwordless authentication is so much more than ensuring customers can easily and seamlessly access their information, their accounts and make purchases – it’s about revolutionizing the way companies interact with their customers. By eliminating passwords, businesses can immediately reduce churn and cart abandonment and provide superior security for personal data,” said Transmit Security CEO and Co-founder Mickey Boodaei. “Our customers, whether they are in the retail, banking, financial, telecommunications or automotive sectors, understand that providing an optimized identity experience is a multimillion dollar challenge. With this latest round of funding from premier partners, we can significantly expand our reach to help rid the world of passwords.”
Boodaei is best known in the cybersecurity market as co-founder of Imperva. He wrote a guest post for Biometric Update in 2019 on the need for biometrics to be part of a complete IAM strategy to solve the password problem.
“Every time I see a login button on a website, I get anxious. Whenever an app texts me a code that I have to enter, I become frustrated with the process. We’ve all learned to suffer and accept the terrible user experience and poor security that comes with passwords just because that’s the way it has always worked in the past,” said Rakesh Loonkar, President and Co-Founder, Transmit Security. “Transmit Security is offering application owners a new reality: The ability to go passwordless no matter the size of their organization or number of users. The fact that we have raised a record amount of funding is a clear indication that the world is ready to eliminate passwords and embrace biometric authentication technology so that they can deliver enhanced user experiences combined with significantly heightened levels of security.”
Transmit has been ranked fifth on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500, and second among Israeli startups by Calcalist. The company joined the FIDO Alliance Board of Directors earlier this year.
The huge fundraise for Transmit provides a new high dollar figure among a flurry of successful fundraises by biometrics providers, including idwall, Paravision, Veriff, ID.me and Socure. Just those five companies totaled in $330 million in funding in the past 100 days.
Article: Transmit Security raises $543M to grow biometric passwordless authentication