Argentine Auth0 raises US$103 million, joins the unicorn club •

Contxto – Last Monday, the Argentine authentication startup, Auth0, announced its latest Series E round totaling a whopping US$103 million. Sapphire Ventures led the round while collaborating with other investors including, K9 Ventures, Telstra Ventures, among others.

With this, Auth0 can now sit at the unicorn table.

In Summary

Founded in 2013, Auth0 has raised a total of US$210 million throughout its lifetime. Now, it’s worth over US$1 billion due to this Series E round. Argentina has now welcomed its fifth unicorn based on this accomplishment. Auth0 joins MercadoLibre, Globant, Despegar and OLX.

“These things are not from one day to the next, but they are preparing with time and help the growth framework we are having,” said Matías Woloski, CTO and co-founder of Auth0, to La Nación. “The software industry pushes these companies a lot. Less than a year ago, we raised US$60 million and we had a valuation of US $500 million, with which we doubled our value.”

Not many companies have the time or capacity to focus on security matters themselves. This is why Auth0 (auth-zero) provides a holistic approach to taking care of their customers’ virtual safety. This is also known as “authentication as a service.”

In-Depth

For instance, Auth0 created a login and identity verification system for corporate networks. Employees can now log in securely, without companies having to worry about data theft, breaches or unauthorized logins.

The company’s system also allows login and authentication for different types of devices and platforms. Some of their methods include single sign-on, multifactor authentication and passwordless login.

“We have a lot of development to do in the sense of authentication,” said Woloski. “Passwords are an old solution, so we are in a position where we can give programmers a platform that works, that can read more variables of the environment, such as the fingerprint or face, instead of asking for the password all the time.”

Currently offering services to around 7,000 corporate clients, the firm’s goal is to keep growing internationally. Allegedly, the founders plan to boost the operations in their five international offices in Japan, Australia, the UK, and obviously, Argentina.

The future looks good for Auth0. Its revenue has been increasing two-fold year after year, and the team has also increased more than half in two years.

CEO Eugenio Pace and CTO Matías Woloski started the company in 2013, although they got involved in identity verification and cybersecurity in 2008. Around this time, they realized the large-scale threats that hackers presented to consumers and companies.

Essentially, Auth0’s mission is to make the internet a safer place, especially with so much private information out there.

“Today there are databases with 2,000 million users and passwords,” said Pace. ”Any hacker attacking different sites can get into someone’s account, steal it and resell it, in the scale of all the subscriptions that exist today.”