Founders: Todd McKinnon, Frederic Kerrest
Launched: 2009
Funding: $231.5 million
Valuation: $1.2 billion
Disrupting: cloud and mobile security
Rival: Microsoft
Source: Okta
Okta co-founder and CEO Todd McKinnon.
As apps, users and devices continue to multiply, companies are increasingly challenged to maintain a high level of security while not choking off access to the very devices and services their employees need. Okta saw a business in that challenge. Founders Todd McKinnon and Frederic Kerrest, who had both worked at Salesforce.com, started the company in 2009 to offer a cloud service that allows customers to manage their employees' logins to multiple Internet-accessed services, providing greater security and quick access. It recently began offering a service that tracks and secures a company's mobile devices as well.
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Among the companies using Okta's cloud services for employee identification are MGM Resorts, Adobe, Box, Groupon and Rosetta Stone, to name a few.
Venture capital investors — including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock Partners — have plowed about $230 million into the company over several rounds of financing, giving Okta a market valuation of around $1.2 billion.
