Transmit Security raises $543M to accelerate its mission of helping the world go passwordless

Transmit Security announced it has raised $543 million in Series A funding, bringing the company’s pre-money valuation to $2.2 billion, and marking the largest Series A funding round in cybersecurity history and one of the highest valuations for a bootstrapped company.

The funding round was led by Insight Partners and General Atlantic, with additional investment from Cyberstarts, Geodesic, SYN Ventures, Vintage, and Artisanal Ventures. Transmit Security will use the funding to increase the company’s reach and expand its primary business functions, investing in key global areas in order to grow the organization, ultimately enabling the company to accelerate its mission to help the world go passwordless.

Organizations lose millions of dollars annually and place themselves and their customers at high risk due to password-based authentication that is inherently unsafe, delivers poor user experience, leaves customers unsatisfied and places brands at risk of jeopardizing their reputations.

Research shows 55% of consumers stop using a website because the login process is too complex, while 87.5% find themselves locked out of an online account after too many failed login attempts. Even worse, 92% of consumers will completely abandon a website without completing a purchase instead of going through the steps to recover or reset login credentials.

Outdated and ineffective password-based systems are costing businesses revenue, and Forrester reports the average help desk labor cost to reset a single password is more than $70. In addition to delivering poor user experiences and costing brands millions of dollars in revenue, password breaches pose a major threat to data security. Weak passwords account for more than 80% of all data breaches and are the result of the majority of all account takeovers.

Using biometric authentication, Transmit Security provides the first natively passwordless identity and risk management solution to the largest brands in the world. Transmit Security’s mission is to enable organizations to deliver advanced identity use cases that improve the user experience, enhance security, and satisfy compliance requirements at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional identity solutions.

“Passwordless authentication is so much more than ensuring customers can easily and seamlessly access their information, their accounts and make purchases – it’s about revolutionizing the way companies interact with their customers. By eliminating passwords, businesses can immediately reduce churn and cart abandonment and provide superior security for personal data,” said Transmit Security CEO and Co-Founder Mickey Boodaei.

“Our customers, whether they are in the retail, banking, financial, telecommunications or automotive sectors, understand that providing an optimized identity experience is a multimillion dollar challenge. With this latest round of funding from premier partners, we can significantly expand our reach to help rid the world of passwords.”

“Every time I see a login button on a website, I get anxious. Whenever an app texts me a code that I have to enter, I become frustrated with the process. We’ve all learned to suffer and accept the terrible user experience and poor security that comes with passwords just because that’s the way it has always worked in the past,” said Rakesh Loonkar, President and Co-Founder, Transmit Security.

“Transmit Security is offering application owners a new reality: The ability to go passwordless no matter the size of their organization or number of users. The fact that we have raised a record amount of funding is a clear indication that the world is ready to eliminate passwords and embrace biometric authentication technology so that they can deliver enhanced user experiences combined with significantly heightened levels of security.”

“We have been watching the growth of Transmit Security for some time, and are deeply impressed by the leadership and passion Mickey and Rakesh have demonstrated as they take identity management to a new level. Their groundbreaking technology, entrepreneurial spirit and deep expertise is precisely what this industry needs at this moment,” said Matt Gatto, Managing Director at Insight Partners. “We are thrilled to welcome the Transmit Security team to the Insight family as we focus our investments on creating a passwordless world.”

Paul Stamas, Global Co-Head of Financial Services and Managing Director at General Atlantic, continued, “Mickey and Rakesh’s clear vision for transforming the identity experience and their focus on product innovation have made Transmit an emerging leader in identity management.

“Transmit has successfully delivered elegant and effective solutions, with differentiated identity orchestration and passwordless authentication, to some of the largest companies in the world. We are thrilled to be partnering with the talented Transmit team and look forward to assisting them in unlocking the further potential of the business.”

Mr. Boodaei and Mr. Loonkar have an in-depth understanding of the complexities and challenges surrounding the identity management space, and they are focused on simplifying authentication journeys for enterprise organizations across industries. In 2002, Mr. Boodaei helped build and was the co-founder of Imperva, a cybersecurity platform which went public in 2011. In 2006, Mr. Boodaei joined forces with Mr. Loonkar to found Trusteer, a fraud protection software platform. Seven years after its inception, Trusteer was sold to IBM in one of the largest security acquisitions the company has completed.

The Series A funding round caps off a year of phenomenal growth and key milestones for Transmit Security. In the last 12 months the company:

• Introduced BindID, the customer authentication service that is completely password-free. BindID requires no customer software or dedicated hardware and can be used across any channel or device. Customers can authenticate and access their accounts using the embedded fingerprint or face scanner in their devices, or use their mobile device to securely and easily authenticate to other devices and channels that don’t have an embedded biometric reader.
• Joined the board of the FIDO Alliance.
• Added to its executive suite with the addition of a new Chief Information Security Officer, a new Chief Marketing Officer and a VP of Product.
• Was named to Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 (ranked #5), Boston Business Journal Fast 50 (ranked #4), and named one of the most promising technology companies in Israel by CTech/CALCALIST (ranked #2).