The founders of OwnID, Dor Shany and Rooly Eliezerov, beforehand based Gigya, a startup that needed to make it simpler to assist establish prospects. They sold that startup to SAP for $350 million in 2017, however the thought of constructing it simple to log into web sites with out friction was at all times behind their minds, and so they launched OwnID final 12 months to assist resolve that specific drawback.
Shany defined that the founding workforce understood id from their time at Gigya, and so they needed to create an organization to make it so simple as potential to authenticate from a person perspective. Anybody who has forgotten a password is aware of how maddening this course of could be.
Their thought was to maneuver the method to your cellphone and reap the benefits of the cellphone’s built-in authentication system. “The cellphone is definitely a two-factor authentication by itself as a result of it’s one thing you’ve and biometric authentication. The essence is that you just go to a web site, you enter your e mail handle, you click on ‘skip password’ and log into your cellphone along with your biometric (face or finger) ID.” That’s it.
When you have ever tried to log right into a streaming service like Netflix in your tv, you already know it may be a irritating expertise, and in instances like this, OwnID presents you with a QR code on display, and you employ your cellphone to scan the code, then log into your cellphone.
One other annoyance that OwnID takes care of is whenever you transfer between units and you want to bear in mind your password (except you’ve a password supervisor of some kind). With OwnID, you might be at all times authenticating with the cellphone, in order that drawback ought to simply go away.
Shany mentioned that it’s tough to spoof since you register by your cellphone whenever you first come to the web site and the cryptographic key’s saved in your cellphone from that time ahead. At any time when the web site or app sees your cellphone has the important thing, it is aware of it’s you.
From the web site or app proprietor perspective, they’re connecting to OwnID through an API, and as soon as the developer provides the code, customers are offered with an choice to log in with no password utilizing the cellphone.
The corporate is making OwnID publicly accessible right now for the primary time, however it’s already working with massive prospects like Nestlé and DeLonghi. It presently has about 20 workers with plans to double that within the coming 12 months. He says that the pandemic has truly made it simpler to search out various workers as a result of they will rent individuals from wherever, and that provides them far more flexibility.
OwnID introduced a $6.2 million seed spherical right now led by Mayfield. The founder’s earlier firm Gigya raised over $100 million, in keeping with Crunchbase, earlier than being acquired by SAP. It’s price noting that Mayfield was an early investor in that firm as properly.
