Startup Descope Launches Password-Free Authentication Platform and Announces $53 Million Seed Funding
Startup Descope unveiled today a $53 million seed round, launching a password-free authentication and user management platform. The platform is intended for development personnel and helps them, among other things, reduce security risks and improve the user experience.
Descope was established during 2022 under the leadership of Slavik Markovich (CEO), Aviad Lichtenstein, Guy Rinat, Gilad Shariki, Doron Sharon, Dan Sheral, Meir Vahanon and Rishi Bhargaba, founders and executives of the cyber company Demisto which was sold in 2019 to Palo Alto for $560 million. The company employs about 30 people in Tel Aviv and Los Altos, California.
The use of passwords is one of the main causes of security breaches that are exploited every day as part of fraud and theft in many computer applications. In addition, their use involves difficulties that cause abandonment and a negative experience for end users. Descope’s platform helps developers add authentication, user management and authorization capabilities by adding single lines of code to the applications they develop. The platform offers various alternatives to facilitate the implementation, maintenance and updating of user management throughout the application lifecycle. All this without the need to use passwords.
The platform was developed by security experts to enable user identification while protecting against fraudulent attempts such as impersonation and takeover of user accounts. The use of the platform allows developers to direct their resources to the development of the core areas of their companies, speed up time to market and save a lot of time. The platform is now available for B2C (consumer-oriented) and B2B (business-oriented) applications.
Descope aims to make the creation of authentication without a password easy and intuitive and enables, among other things:
- Visually design the entire authentication experience and the screens that the end customers will use. All this without writing a single line of code
- Choose from a wide variety of password-free authentication methods, including email or phone authentication, biometric authentication, authentication apps, and identification through social networks
- Verify and manage identities throughout the user journey, including merging different accounts created by a single user
- Implement single sign-on (SSO) in business applications
- Implement access control (Authorization) while protecting all authentication steps
- Easily implement risk mitigation methods, including multi-factor authentication (MFA) and biometric authentication, both when entering and using applications
- Manage access keys for authentication between computers
The funding round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and GGV Capital, with participation from: Unusual Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital, Cerca Partners, Tech Aviv, J Ventures, Triventures, Kmehin Ventures, and Silicon Valley CISO Investments.
The round also included prominent private investors including George Kurtz, founder and CEO of CrowdStrike, John W. Thompson, independent director at Microsoft, Biful Sinha, co-founder and CEO of Rubrik, Asaf Rappaport, co-founder and CEO of Wiz, Roni Zahavi is the founder and CEO of Bob and Micah Kaufman is the founder and CEO of Fiverr.
Slavik Markovic, co-founder and CEO of Descope: “From many years of experience we have learned that the development work of authentication is never finished for any application. In previous positions we built all the authentication and user management components for business and consumer applications we developed. Each time, what started in the plans as a short sprint development soon turned into a multi-year investment and took our focus away from the more important tasks. Our vision is to eliminate the need to devote so much effort to authentication, so that developers can focus on the initiatives that matter most to them. We will take care of the construction, maintenance and updating of the entire field of authentication for them.”
“Eighty percent of the cyberattacks we witness involve some form of identity or credential theft,” said George Kurtz, co-founder and CEO of CrowdStrike. loopholes in the authentication processes. Descope takes a unique approach to the identification process and creates a new benchmark for attackers.”
“The validation process is too important to be done wrong, but also too complicated and time-consuming to be done by internal development teams at companies,” said Guru Chahal, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. “Descope’s founding team includes serial entrepreneurs, a significant part of their strength is actively listening to users and solving their problems. The enthusiastic reactions of the first customers indicate that Descope is developing game-changing technology for application developers.”
“We are now witnessing the end of the password era. The customer experience and application security of the future do not include typing 12 digits that can be easily hacked,” said Oren Junger, partner at GGV Capital. “Innovative companies like Descope are creating this huge paradigm shift of moving to a password-free world. Descope balances the need of developers to develop applications conveniently, the need of organizations for a high level of security and the expectation of end users for a superior user experience. GGV looks forward to accompanying the Descope team on their journey to remove passwords from the digital world.”