1Password Acquires Kolide, Expanding Endpoint Security Offerings
AgileBits, the renowned password management software developer behind 1Password, has announced its acquisition of Kolide, a leading endpoint security platform. The details of the acquisition were not disclosed, but 1Password CEO Jeff Shiner has confirmed that all 30 employees of Kolide, including founder and CEO Jason Meller, will be joining 1Password as a cohesive team. In addition, Meller will take on the role of VP of Product at 1Password.
“The hybrid, work-anywhere-and-on-any-device workforce is here to stay, and security has seen a massive impact as a result of this shift,” Shiner shared in an email interview with TechCrunch. “Employees are working across a mix of personal and work-issued devices, and most organizations don’t have a good handle on how to secure access to their applications and data on those devices. Kolide is the only company in the market with this kind of device security and contextual access management solution that can check the health status of a device at the point of authentication in real time before granting access to company applications.”
Kolide, based in Boston, Massachusetts, is a major player in the rapidly growing global endpoint cybersecurity sector, which is projected to reach a value of $23 billion by 2027. Competitors in this space include Huntress, Automox, and Uptycs, with the latter being well-funded. The platform offered by Kolide, which Meller co-founded in 2016 with Mike Arpaia and Zach Wasserman, delivers security-related endpoint alerts and remediation via the popular communication platform Slack. Its customers, which number over 250 and include Databricks, Robinhood, Discord, and Anduril, benefit from features like security issue context, self-remediation steps for Mac, Windows, and Linux devices, and a personalized privacy center. This is all made possible by leveraging the open-source and Facebook-led universal endpoint agent project, Osquery.
Kolide’s primary goal is to prevent unknown endpoint devices from accessing corporate apps. If the platform detects a “risky” device attempting to access a company’s network, it will block the attempt and suggest steps for the device’s user to take in order to restore it to a “trusted state.”
Interestingly, 1Password was once a customer of Kolide, along with other well-known companies such as Databricks, Robinhood, Discord, and Anduril. Before being acquired, Kolide had raised $26.6 million in venture capital funding from notable firms like OpenView and Matrix, as well as various angel investors.
“Kolide is built on the principle that end users, when honestly informed and motivated, are perhaps the most effective resource that security-focused organizations will ever have against the world’s most nuanced and devastating security threats,” Meller stated in an email to TechCrunch. “Right away, we knew that we had created something special and needed to get it into the hands of as many people as we could. 1Password is a company that not only embodies the same values that made creating our product possible, but also has the resources to proliferate end user-focused security solutions to every organization on the planet.”
This acquisition marks the third of its kind for 1Password, following the purchases of SecretHub, a Dutch cybersecurity company, and Passage, a Texas-based provider of passkey tools. It comes at a time of great success for the company, with last September’s revenue surpassing $250 million, and a client base of over 100,000 organizations. Despite the challenges faced by many cybersecurity companies in today’s market, 1Password continues to thrive, having recently raised hundreds of millions in venture capital funding and reaching a valuation of several billion dollars.
Shiner shared that the company plans to add 250 jobs this year to accommodate its rapid growth and expansion.
