The venture capital arm of identity and access management platform Okta has launched a new $50m fund to invest in tech start-ups with a focus on identity, security and privacy.
The firm is targeting early-stage companies which utilise cutting-edge tech such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain.
Okta’s portfolio companies will have access its software, expertise, SDK and API design partnerships as well as co-marketing opportunities.
The San Francisco-based firm has already tapped the fund to invest in blockchain-based digital identity company Trusted Key.
Okta Ventures will invest between $250,000 and $2m in eight to 10 start-ups per year, the company’s chief operating officer Frederic Kerrest and senior vice president Monty Gray told TechCrunch in an interview.
“In line with Okta’s vision of enabling any organization to use any technology, Okta Ventures will invest in the growing ecosystem of startups tackling issues like identity, security, and privacy,” Kerrest said in an official statement.
“Beyond investing in industry-wide innovation, we also recognize how valuable these advancements can be for our customers, who are often looking for solutions to some of the hard problems these companies are solving.
Okta was founded in 2009 and provides identity verification services and products for companies including 20th Century Fox, JetBlue, Nordstrom, Slack, Teach for America and Twilio.
The Okta Identity Cloud has more than 6,000 pre-built integrations to applications and infrastructure providers.
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