Okta Closes $US75m in financing
Identity-as-a-service technology company, Okta, has received $US75 million in new funding. Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners and Sequoia Capital, led the round with participation from Khosla Ventures, Altimeter, Glynn Capital and others.
Since its founding in 2009, Okta has now raised a total of $US230 million.
Okta CEO, Todd McKinnon, said the company is at an important inflection point where IT leaders, product developers, industry analysts and the biggest technology companies in the world are acknowledging the critical role identity plays in connecting people, apps, devices and organisations.
“Okta’s Cloud-based identity management set us up to become the foundation for secure connections between people and technology. We’ll leverage our new capital to build on that foundation, accelerating our leadership position, driving deeper innovation across all our product lines, and continuing our growth and expansion into new regions,” he said.
Andreessen Horowitz co-founder and partner, Ben Horowitz, claimed this new round of funding will enable the company to expand its scope to secure everything that people interact with and bring that solution to the world.
"Todd McKinnon and Frederic Kerrest had a vision for the future of Cloud computing that has propelled Okta to become one of the runaway market leaders in identity management," he added.
McKinnon added that the company has further plans to open its first Australian office in Sydney and expand the local team to eight staff members by the end of September. It has also grown to more than 500 employees globally, including the addition of executive hires and new offices in Toronto, Seattle and the Netherlands.
Some of its global customer wins in the past six months include 21st Century FOX, Etihad Airways, DISH Network and RE/MAX.
Okta also recently made a substantial investment in a datacentre infrastructure located in Europe to support the business needs, privacy and data locality regulations of Okta’s Europe, Middle East, and Africa customers.
McKinnon also said the company has more than tripled both its sales, support and services team and customer count throughout the region over the last year and this move will further support Okta’s rapid growth in the region.
