Incubated at the Technoport, Passbolt, the privacy-first, open source password manager for teams, continues its development with new funds worth two million euros. This investment will enable the company to respond rapidly to an exponential demand for data security.
How do you manage all the passwords you use every day, be that at home or in your business? Do you always use the same password? Or do you just use 123456 or password? Then you should know that these are among the worst passwords used in the last seven years, according to a study conducted by Splashdata in 2019.
However, companies such as Passbolt that simplify and secure your passwords exist. Many developers and marketers today work with systems outside their company, accessible by passwords, with differentiated access levels and shared accounts. Regarded as the safe of passwords used in companies, Passbolt acts as a guarantor of secure access management (applications, social networks, external servers) and acts as a link between different users.
Co-founded in December 2016 by Kevin Muller, a French entrepreneur who previously ran a web agency in India for 15 years, along with Rémy Bertot and Cédric Alfonsi, the startup benefited from the Fit 4 Start program at its start and quickly showed a strong capacity for growth.
Double or More Staff Numbers?
“We now have close to 100,000 users and they are keeping us on our toes,” says Kevin Muller. The startup has already doubled its workforce from 6 to 12 in 2020. With the funding obtained, it wants to increase the capacity of the technical teams, while specifying that it is looking for “Swiss Army Knife type profiles”, used to working in open source with seasoned developers.
“Our competitors are all doing security by obscurity, whereas we are fully open source.”
Kevin Muller
The fundraising took place in two stages: first 1.1 million euros was announced in October, following negotiations that were delayed due to the health crisis. Then €900,000 was announced on December 4. The investors, including Expon Capital, are thrilled to see their protégé take off with confidence.
“We have had a recurring investment-financing method since the beginning. We were already at break-even when we signed the first stage of this financing”. In addition, we have support from ScaleFund II, a Belgian partner as well as other Benelux funds such as Seeder Fund, Dedicated and Bondi Capital.
Agility and Open Source
On top of its free and community oriented software (Passbolt CE), Passbolt offers two commercial versions of its product: one for professionals – Passbolt Pro, which can be downloaded on the company’s server. The other – Passbolt Cloud, it is intended for smaller teams and individuals and allows them to manage their passwords more simply, with enhanced data and privacy control. Kevin Muller’s credo is to share their best practices with complete transparency.
“We’re are bringing something new to password management. Our competitors are all doing security by obscurity, whereas we are fully open source. Where does the stored data go? What algorithms are used? Everything is clear and transparent. The collaborative model and agility allow for a lot of good practices to emerge from our community.”
This permanent connection to a community of hyper-technical people – mostly developers – allows them to envisage exponential development of their roadmap in the short term because they know that demand is always larger than supply. The solutions that Passbolt will now be able to provide will come from the best of the web.
