Hello, we’re Strivacity. Pleasure to meet you.

We’ve got some exciting news. We’re putting the “C” (aka customers) back in customer identity and access management (CIAM).

Sure, it’s always been there, right at the front of the acronym.

But somewhere along the way vendors became so focused on the “I”, “A” and “M” that they lost the plot.

We’re here to change that.

First, some big news

To help us put customers back in front, we’re thrilled to share that we’ve secured $9.3 million in Series A financing. The funding round was led by Ten Eleven Ventures with participation from Toba Capital.

We’re also excited to welcome Todd Weber, CTO and operating partner at Ten Eleven Ventures, to Strivacity’s board of directors. Prior to joining Ten Eleven Ventures, Todd was CTO at Optiv.

You can check out our official press release for more words on our exciting news.

How it started

Nearly a decade ago, when we were both working to support Mandiant’s threat detection and response business, we noticed three distinct challenges with identity and access management technology:

• First, the adoption of this tech was lagging behind most other types of security tooling. In fact, many of the organizations we worked with at the time waved off identity and access management controls altogether … and that was puzzling to us. IAM tools are critical to stopping intruders before they have an opportunity to get the keys to the kingdom.
• Among the existing CIAM providers in the market, the focus on the “C” was often missing. The big vendors in the IAM space all built their solutions primarily for B2E use -- they struggled to handle the immense scale of the cloud, they prioritized security and compliance above all else, and ultimately they left customer experience as an afterthought.
• Lastly, the organizations that did adopt CIAM tech devoted an enormous amount of engineering and security resources to feeding, watering and caring for it. Instead of innovating and building new products and features to support the brand’s business, their teams were stuck writing custom code to stitch their (often multiple) identity stores to their customer databases and other back-end systems.

We believe that brands shouldn’t be forced to choose between providing a great customer journey and keeping their data secure. And they also shouldn’t have to hire an army of developers or consultants to get the outcome they want..

Eliminating this “either … or” choice is what motivated us to start Strivacity.

How it's going

In 2019 -- following a conversation with Toba Capital’s Vinny Smith -- we decided to take the proverbial plunge. Little did we know that a global pandemic was a few months away, so that added a bit of a plot twist. But we persevered, using our respective kitchen tables as Strivacity HQ.

We set out to provide a no-code solution that adds secure CIAM capabilities to your online properties fast so you can grow your revenue, stay compliant with fast-changing privacy regulations and personalize your service with the insights you’ll get into how your customers interact with you.

Fast forward to today, and we’re thrilled that brands of all shapes and sizes -- from entertainment companies to tech startups -- share our vision for what CIAM technology should look like.

One of our customers, a global gaming and entertainment brand, wanted to upgrade their customers’ online experience. However, their engineering team had other priorities and they didn’t have the big budget for the months-long services projects other CIAM vendors were quoting. With Strivacity, they were able to test drive our service right out of the gate -- putting smiles on the faces of their engineering and marketing teams-- and our “customers first” approach aligned with theirs. After just a few months, they were already looking at expanding us to other properties around the world.

What's next

We’re incredibly thankful to our employees, customers, partners and investors that have helped us come this far, and we’re looking forward to the road ahead.

If you’re curious to hear more about Strivacity, or just want to stay in touch, we’d love that.