Greylock Partners and Khosla Ventures Join Existing Investors Andreessen Horowitz and FLOODGATE, Industry Veterans Aneel Bhusri and David Weiden Join as Advisors
SAN FRANCISCO — August 8, 2011 — Today, Okta, the leading on-demand identity and access management service, announced it has closed $16.5 million in Series B financing, with new investors Greylock Partners and Khosla Ventures, joining previous investors Andreessen Horowitz and FLOODGATE. The new funds will help fuel an aggressive growth strategy as the company continues to make cloud application adoption easier than ever for both enterprise IT and their end users. As part of this transaction, technology industry veteran David Weiden of Khosla Ventures will become a board advisor, and cloud visionary Aneel Bhusri, co-founder and co-CEO of Workday, will join the Okta Board of Directors.
Okta’s leading on-demand identity and access management service enables enterprises to accelerate the secure adoption of their web-based applications, both in the cloud and behind the firewall. Okta delivers a complete solution addressing the needs of IT, end users and business leaders. The company has made tremendous progress on multiple fronts since its public launch in January of this year:
Use of Okta’s 100 percent on-demand service has ramped up dramatically to power over one million authentications per month, with a customer base that continues to rapidly expand across industries.
As Okta customers, T.D. Williamson, Inc., Pandora Media, AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Enterasys, along with many others, have experienced increased security, reduced administrative costs and significant increases in user productivity with their cloud applications.
Weekly product releases have resulted in the rapid addition of new functionality, including the delivery of over 1,000 pre-integrated business and consumer applications as a part of the Okta Application Network.
Comments on the News
“This new investment from Greylock and Khosla is a huge validation of our vision for a Cloud First IT enterprise,” said Todd McKinnon, CEO, Okta. “We truly believe that leveraging the cloud is simply better for business — it enhances productivity, cuts costs and opens up new opportunities. We’re making cloud applications more accessible and easier for enterprises to manage — something our customers are demanding. With these new funds, along with Aneel and David’s experience and guidance, we look forward to continuing our growth and helping organizations of all shapes and sizes reap the benefits of the cloud.”
“Balancing security and convenience is a fundamental challenge, and emerging multi-vendor SaaS environments in many ways actually increase that challenge. Okta has the right team to address that head on,” said David Weiden, general partner, Khosla Ventures.
“Based on my experience at both Salesforce and now Pandora, my team is obviously a big believer in the power of the cloud, but to run an organization with cloud applications, being a believer just isn’t enough,” said Steve Cakebread, chief financial officer, Pandora Media, Inc.
“Okta has enabled us to maximize the business benefits of our cloud adoption while also minimizing security risk and ensuring our employees can get access to the apps they need. Without Okta, we would not have been able to securely scale our Cloud First IT model to support our rapid business growth.”
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