Comcast Ventures Leads Investment to Accelerate Adoption of True Passwordless Security

NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- HYPR, the leading provider of True Passwordless Security, announced today the company has closed $18.3 Million in Series B financing led by Comcast Ventures, bringing the company's total funding to more than $32 million. The new funds will fuel HYPR's growth, accelerate new product delivery and expand customer success operations across the company's rapidly growing enterprise customer base. Additional investors that participated in this funding round include .406 Ventures, RRE Ventures, Allen & Co, Triphammer Ventures, Boldstart Ventures, RTP Ventures, Mastercard and Samsung NEXT. HYPR also announced that Dave Zilberman, Managing Director at Comcast Ventures, has joined the company's Board of Directors.

With millions of users deployed across a growing customer base of companies such as Mastercard, Aetna, Rakuten, First Citrus Bank and T-Mobile, and 350 percent YoY revenue growth, the new funding solidifies HYPR as the leading provider of passwordless security - demonstrating unparalleled innovation and the ability to execute a highly differentiated solution in a crowded cyber security industry.

HYPR has delivered the first authentication platform purpose-built to eliminate passwords and shared secrets. Powered by advanced Public Key Cryptography, the HYPR solution combines enterprise-grade security with a mobile-first user experience. This innovative approach removes the hackers' primary target - forcing adversaries to attack each device individually - while providing users a secure login experience across mobile, web and desktop applications.

According to Verizon's 2019 Data Breach Investigation Report, passwords and shared secrets remain the hackers' favorite target - with more than 50 billion credential stuffing attacks reported in the past year alone. Gartner predicts that by 2022, 60 percent of large and global enterprises, and 90 percent of midsize enterprises, will implement passwordless authentication methods in more than 50 percent of use cases. The news comes at a good time - as standards body NIST is no longer recommending SMS OTP passcodes as a 2-factor authentication method, while major financial institutions are moving away from legacy 2-FA methods altogether. The urgency for passwordless MFA is also being driven by demand for Strong Customer Authentication mandated by EU regulations such as PSD2.

Headquartered in New York City, with offices in North America and EMEA, HYPR was founded in 2014. The HYPR team brings together decades of cyber security and identity expertise from RSA, Ping Identity, SecureAuth, ForgeRock and Okta.

Insights on the Announcement

"Our customer-first strategy has allowed us to successfully eliminate passwords in a way that's easy to use and easy to deploy. We believe that True Passwordless Security is the best approach for companies of all sizes to prevent fraud, reduce security costs, and increase productivity while delivering the best possible user experience," said George Avetisov, CEO and Co-founder of HYPR.

"This investment signifies unprecedented validation of the HYPR vision and we could not be more thrilled to work with Dave Zilberman and the Comcast Ventures team," he added.

"User experience is at the heart of everything we build. As board members of the FIDO Alliance, we recognized early on that the industry was heading in this direction and to this day our team remains laser-focused on eliminating passwords. Having cyber security experts like Greg Dracon and the .406 Ventures team participate in this round enables us to continue driving that vision forward and accelerate the delivery of best-in-class passwordless security for our customers," said Roman Kadinsky, COO and Co-founder of HYPR.

"We believe passwords continue to represent a serious risk to enterprises. HYPR addresses a large gap that legacy 2-factor authentication has left unsolved - the password. The team's strategy has allowed them to move quickly and provide rapid deployment of passwordless authentication across the enterprise," said Dave Zilberman, Managing Director of Comcast Ventures.

"We looked to HYPR's True Passwordless Security to strengthen our modern authentication capabilities and leverage the ubiquitous presence of smart phones within the organization in order to create an environment that ensures the security of our organization. They have truly helped us bring our security posture to the next level in the area of user access controls. We're excited to see how they grow," said Joe Kynion, VP & Information Technology Officer at First Citrus Bank.

"We have invested in numerous great cyber security companies over the past decade and have seen the industry evolve in many ways, however, passwords and shared secrets have persisted despite their inherent and well-understood weaknesses. The company that successfully eliminates passwords within the enterprise, with a solution that drastically improves security while facilitating user adoption, is going to make a meaningful and lasting impact on the industry. We believe HYPR's implementation and vision around a passwordless world has given the team an undeniable competitive advantage and their timing could not be better," said Greg Dracon, Partner at .406 Ventures.

About HYPR
HYPR is the leading provider of True Passwordless Security with millions of users deployed across the Global 2000. Shared secrets are the #1 cause of enterprise breaches, fraud and phishing attacks. HYPR is the first Authentication Platform designed to eliminate passwords and shared secrets - effectively removing the hackers' primary target while eliminating fraud, phishing and credential reuse for consumers and employees across the enterprise.

Additional information is available at https://www.hypr.com/

About Comcast Ventures
Comcast Ventures is the venture capital affiliate of Comcast Corporation. Comcast Ventures invests in innovative businesses that represent the next generation of technologies that will change the way people live, work and interact.

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Related Links

https://www.hypr.com

SOURCE HYPR