News
Okta Secures $27 Million to Accelerate International Expansion
September 2013 by Marc Jacob
Okta announced that it closed a $27 million Series D funding round led by returning investor Sequoia Capital. Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners and Khosla Ventures all participated. Okta will use the funds to build on its significant momentum in North America and to expand internationally, led by the company’s first European general manager.
This latest investment comes on the heels of Okta’s $25 million Series C round in 2012, and serves as a strong endorsement of the company’s vision to securely connect the world’s people, applications and devices. As the industry’s leading cloud-based identity management platform, Okta helps IT leaders centrally manage and simplify end-user access across a rapidly increasing set of mobile, cloud-based and on-premises applications.
European GM to Lead International Expansion
This latest financing round will help fuel the company’s international expansion. Philip Turner joins Okta as the company’s first European general manager, bringing 20 years of experience building and scaling enterprise software businesses across the UK and mainland Europe.
International expansion comes at an ideal time for Okta, as demand for the company’s enterprise identity management solution has grown significantly worldwide. Okta’s customer count increased well over 100 percent since this time last year, and includes the addition of global Fortune 500 companies like MGM Resorts International and European-based organisations like London Gatwick Airport.
Innovation to Address Enterprises’ Diverse Identity Needs
Okta has proven its ability to scale and meet the needs of the global enterprise through continued product innovation and the launch of comprehensive new partner programs. Major milestones include:
· New Functionality To Enable External Identity Management: Okta introduced several features — including restful APIs, in-product customisation options, and seamlessly federated access into B2B portals — to help enterprises manage and secure external identities. Okta also released its integration with SharePoint, which enables IT administrators to securely manage customer or partner access to SharePoint-based portals.
· Okta Technology Alliance & Okta Solution Provider Partner Programs: Okta announced new partner programs designed to add to the more than 2,500 pre-integrated applications in the Okta Application Network — and to meet the increasing demand for Okta’s enterprise-grade identity service.
· Comprehensive Cloud Security, Zero-Downtime Architecture: Okta’s service exceeds industry standards for cloud security, including completion of the SOC 2 Type II audit across all five trust principles. The company’s zero-downtime architecture is 100 percent multitenant, stateless and extremely redundant. Okta’s Amazon Web Services footprint spans eight availability zones and two geographic regions, and the service has maintained perfect availability for the past 16 months.
