SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 19, 2014) - ForgeRock Inc. , the leading open platform provider of identity relationship management (IRM) solutions, announced today that it has received $30 million in its oversubscribed Series C round of funding. Meritech Capital Partners led the round and existing investors Accel Partners and Foundation Capital also participated. As part of the investment, Paul Madera, co-founder and managing director of Meritech, will be joining ForgeRock™ board of directors. The latest round brings the company's total funding to $52 million. Building on the momentum of a banner year, the investment will accelerate disruptive product development and innovation, and increase ForgeRock's global market share via expanded sales and marketing efforts.
Founded in 2010 and built on Sun Microsystems' market-leading open-source identity projects, ForgeRock recognizes that customer-centric organizations require a new type of identity platform to harness the explosion of users, applications, devices, and "things" and the numerous relationships between them. Unlike traditional niche solutions focused on a portion of the required capability or traditional legacy suites comprised of bundles of products thrown together, ForgeRock developed the first and only open, unified, massively scalable identity relationship management platform purpose-built for delivering customer-facing solutions to any device or "thing," on-premises or in the cloud. Today, ForgeRock has more than half a billion end users of its IRM solution in 30 countries and five continents.
Success, Growth and Momentum ForgeRock grew sales by 305 percent from 2012 to 2013, driven by increased customer demand and interest from key verticals including healthcare, insurance, finance and government. Key customer wins include Toyota, Thomson Reuters, GEICO, Yellow Pages Canada and McKesson. During the last year, ForgeRock also established a strategic partnership with salesforce.com, contributing to the company's growth and reach globally.
The swell of Fortune 1000 enterprise and government customers deploying ForgeRock IRM solutions has led to a 166 percent increase in average deal size year-over-year. Sales grew quarter-over-quarter 112 percent from Q1FY13 to Q1FY14, continuing the quarter-to-quarter growth the company has maintained since inception. Sales and customer count also continue to grow evenly between the North American and international markets.
ForgeRock was voted one of the Best Places to Work in 2013 by the San Francisco Business Times. The company was also recognized by AlwaysOn as one of the OnDemand Top 100 winners for its disruptive technology and leadership in its category.
ForgeRock sees companies struggling to manage and control digital identities everywhere. Illustrating the magnitude of this challenge, a Forrester survey showed that enterprises reported a median of only 101 to 1,000 partner identities and 1,001 to 10,000 employee identities -- but 500,001 to 5,000,000 consumer identities -- within their organizations. ForgeRock's platform meets this challenge. It is purpose-built for internet scale, enabling products and services like the connected car, eGovernment and healthcare wearables, among others.
Supporting Quotes:
"ForgeRock is pioneering IRM globally. With a brilliant team, exceptional growth and an expanding number of partnerships, the company has quickly moved from its European origins to become the worldwide category leader," said Bruce Golden, partner at Accel Partners. "In just two years, ForgeRock has established a global footprint with headquarters in the U.S. and sales and support operations to assist customers anywhere they do business."
"The winners and losers in today's digital world will be determined by how they approach the issue of identity as they develop new offerings," said Warren Weiss, general partner, Foundation Capital. "Those that utilize an identity platform like ForgeRock's can quickly respond to the needs of their business. They can roll out new services to any device or thing more quickly than their competitors, and will have a distinct advantage in the market."
"ForgeRock helps companies take visionary ideas and transform them into applications that can be delivered across any device or thing, harnessing the power of identity," said Paul Madera, co-founder and managing director, Meritech Capital Partners. "ForgeRock's high-scaling, flexible, open-source platform changes market dynamics by helping companies develop new revenue streams with better customer engagement in today's connected world."
"The IAM industry is undergoing a huge shift from IAM to IRM, and ForgeRock is leading the charge," said Alex Ott, owner and founder of CrossContinentalVentures, a global provider of advisory services to entrepreneurs and ForgeRock board member. "The company recognized this shift early and is creating a disruption in the market by extending the value of identity where legacy vendors have failed to innovate. With ForgeRock's open source approach, organizations can create a seamless experience when developing customer-focused services across users, applications, devices and things."
"Oracle, CA and IBM's IAM products fail to meet the demands of today's digital enterprise. Their inability to seamlessly manage identities, at scale, across devices, people and things puts enterprise customers at risk and leads to missed opportunities," said Mike Ellis, CEO, ForgeRock. "ForgeRock understands the customer relationship is more important now than ever before. We are causing a disruption in the market by securely enabling new revenue-driving business opportunities for our customers. Our large customer user-base includes many of the leaders in their respective industries and is a validation of ForgeRock's innovation and impact on their businesses."
Supporting Resources ForgeRock Blog on Series C Funding ( http://forgerock.com/series-c/ ) ForgeRock Customers ( http://forgerock.com/customers/ ) ForgeRock Open Identity Stack ( http://forgerock.com/what-we-offer/open-identity-stack/ ) ForgeRock Identity Relationship Management ( http://forgerock.com/irm/ ) ForgeRock on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/ForgeRock ) ForgeRock on Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/pages/ForgeRock/101648653214231 )
About Accel Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has a long history of partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses. Accel today invests globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto, New York City, London and Bangalore.
Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful companies, many of which have defined their categories, including Alfresco, Angry Birds (Rovio), Atlassian, Cloudera, ComScore, Dropbox, Facebook, Gameforge, Groupon, Imperva, Kayak, Playfish, QlikTech, Spotify, Supercell, Varonis and Wonga.
For more information, please visit the Accel Partners web site at www.accel.com . Find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/accel .
About Foundation Capital Foundation Capital is dedicated to the proposition that one entrepreneur's idea, with the right support, can become a business that changes the world. Foundation Capital has helped companies like Atheros create the mobile Internet, EnerNOC invent the energy demand response market, and Netflix revolutionize media distribution and consumption, among many others. Foundation Capital is currently invested in more than 80 high-growth ventures in the areas of consumer, information technology, software, semiconductors, and clean technology including BoardVantage, Chegg, Coverity, Lending Club, MobileIron, Simply Hired, Sunrun, TubeMogul and Venafi. Foundation Capital's 22 IPOs include Control4, Envestnet, Financial Engines, Netflix, NetZero, Responsys and Silver Spring Networks. For more information, visit http://www.foundationcapital.com .
About Meritech Capital Meritech Capital Partners is one of the premier providers of late-stage venture capital to category-defining private technology companies and one of the top performing venture funds in the entire industry. With over $2.6 billion under management, Meritech invests in companies with proven and differentiated technology, massive market opportunities, accelerating revenue and experienced management teams. With one of the most prominent venture portfolios Meritech has a wealth of experience providing guidance on issues rapidly scaling companies commonly face including senior management hiring and compensation, IPO market timing and positioning, and M&A negotiating strategies. Meritech investments include such notable companies as Acclarent, BigFix, Broadsoft, Box, Cloudera, Cornerstone OnDemand, Evernote, Facebook, Fortinet, Greenplum, Lynda.com, Netezza, NetSuite, PopCap, Presidio, Riverbed, Ruckus Wireless, Salesforce.com, Sourcefire, SpringSource, Tableau Software, TeleAtlas, Yammer, Zipcar and Zulily. For more information visit www.meritechcapital.com .
About ForgeRock ForgeRock, the fastest growing identity relationship management vendor in the world, is building secure relationships across the modern Web. Focused on using online identities to grow revenue, extend reach, and launch new business models, ForgeRock's Open Identity Stack powers solutions for many of the world's largest companies and government organizations. Founded in 2010, ForgeRock's leadership team brings 80 combined years of experience in the software industry and includes open source icons and innovators, with investors from two of the leading global venture capital firms -- Accel Partners and Foundation Capital. For more information and free downloads, visit http://www.forgerock.com or follow ForgeRock on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/forgerock .
