Why we invested in IndyKite
IndyKite, the Identity Platform for Web 3.0, just came out of stealth and announced a 2.5 MUSD funding round co-led by Alliance Venture and SpeedInvest. See press coverage from Tech.eu and Finansavisen (in Norwegian). We are stoked to back Lasse Andresen and the IndyKite team on their mission to change the digital identity space — again! Here is why.
It’s all about the people
Early-stage venture investing is all about partnering with great founders and teams to leverage their insight, energy and grit to beat the odds building something huge. Getting in on the ground floor of a startup with a successful and exceptional founder with unique domain expertise and a strong network is every VC’s dream and the best way to improve the odds of outsized returns. Lasse Andresen, IndyKite founder/CEO, is best known as the founder and ex-CEO/CTO of ForgeRock, a global market leader in the identity and access management space, that recently IPO’ed on NYSE (ticker: FORG) with a multi-Billion dollar valuation. Lasse is an operator by heart and has vision, energy and perseverance to make the impossible possible. We are happy that Lasse decided to partner with us for building IndyKite. Another of Lasse’s qualities is the ability to attract top talent and build teams, which we are excited to see play out at IndyKite with a great and growing set of talented individuals, officially named Rockstars, joining the team. Rockstars include top ex-ForgeRock resources and industry experts, looking to “jam with the band again”, as well as seasoned new recruits bringing fresh ideas and impulses to the digital identity space. Sticking with “nobody named, nobody forgotten” IndyKite is already an impressive band of 25 Rockstars; an impressive development in a short time. The Rockstars form the foundation for accomplishing great things with purpose and momentum.
Digital identity is massive w/huge unsolved issues and uncaptured value
Digital identity, access management, authentication and related capabilities are critical components and enablers for a digital society. The market for digital identity solutions has seen a massive expansion over the last decades from its infancy. Today it is a double-digit Billion dollar annual market, growing at double-digit percentage points annually; exact numbers vary based on source and definitions. During the last decade, the digital identity market has produced a number of unicorns and multi-Billion dollar IPOs, including companies like Okta/Aurth0, Ping Identity and ForgeRock. We expect the strong macro trend to continue.
Despite the progress on digital identity and the massive scale with Billions of identities deployed, there are still many unresolved pain points and opportunities to remove friction and bring value. For end-users, the UX is still disappointing on even simple dimensions, such as having to remember a multitude of passwords and clicking “allow all cookies” many times a day to access basic information. Furthermore, users cannot easily share personal data between services (data is stuck in service silos) nor control/manage such sharing. For businesses and governments, identities and personal data are to a large extent a compliance challenge, while at the same time an underutilized asset. The reasons for today’s state of affairs are complex, but one significant issue is that the current and mature generation of digital identity solutions has been architected and built on legacy data structures and databases that limit the capabilities. The dominant identity stacks don’t have the ability to fully understand context and act dynamically based on this, and also lack the ability to effectively connect data to the right context in a controlled and secure manner. Furthermore, these systems were architected with personal identities in mind and are thus ill-equipped for a world, where non-personal entities, such as devices, robots and data, need identities to securely connect insight and value from the full datasets in the right context. Herein lies a massive opportunity that IndyKite is going after.
IndyKite’s fresh take on digital identity
IndyKite is building a new paradigm of digital identity solutions, based on a model that solves for all kinds of identities and the many ways they interact with and inform each other. Identity is the inherent mechanism to enable, secure and prove trust. Connected data, in what is known as IndyKite’s Identity Knowledge Graph, provides the power to ask unprecedented questions for context-aware, real-time recommendations, hyper-personalization and fine-grained authorization decisions.
IndyKite’s tag line is The Identity Platform for Web 3.0, as it provides end-users the ability to control and manage their personal data. Given the right permissions, the solution further aims to transform digital identity from a corporate liability into a business asset. We trust that the IndyKite team has found the right architecture and approach to make this vision a reality and that the commitment to make the platform easily deployable/consumable for developers thru APIs/SDKs to serve end-users, community and customers in an optimal way.
The message to all is that IndyKite is ready to Rock’n’Roll, and we are excited to join the Rockstars on tour as “VC roadies”. We are convinced that this is both a big opportunity and a worthwhile mission.
Alliance Venture Delta is proud to be backed by:
Supported by InnovFin Equity, with the financial backing of the European Union under Horizon 2020 Financial Instrument and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) set up under the Investment Plan for Europe. The purpose of EFSI is to help support financing and implementing productive investments in the European Union and to ensure increased access to financing.
