Morning Report: VCs Make Further Bet On Digital Identity Management

Morning Report: ForgeRock raises $88 million Series D amidst bullish signs in the digital identity management space.

As we shift from the real world to the virtual world, our digital transactions and data are increasingly vulnerable to theft and privacy breaches. In response, the digital identity management industry, which ensures identity security on a large scale, has been very active in terms of fundraising and M&A over the past year.

And demand for services in the space may continue to grow. According to TechCrunch, one identity management vendor will need to manage hundreds of millions of digital identities down the road.

Today, ForgeRock, one of the firms that helps solve the overflow of identity data, just closed its $88 million Series D round led by Accel Partners, and participated in by Meritech Capital Partners, KKR, and Foundation Capital. Accel not only took part in all of the company’s funding rounds up to date, but also led its Series A. (The repeated investments imply faith from Accel in the company’s potential future returns.)

The seven-year-old ForgeRock is not the only identity management firm that finds itself in warm funding waters. Crunchbase News previously covered Okta, an identity provider for enterprises, which went public this past April after having raised almost $230 million from investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia. Despite recent IPO woes, Okta’s share prices show no sign of decline compared to its IPO price.

Another company that helps enterprises secure identities, Ping Identity, got acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $600 million last June. In fact, our Editor-in-Chief Alex Wilhelm detailed the firm’s financials the year prior.

TechCrunch disclosed ForgeRock CEO Mike Ellis’s confidence about an IPO in the near future as the company continues to expand its international operations, with a particular focus on China.

From The Crunchbase Daily:

Rovio reveals IPO plans

• The IPOs are back. This week, Angry Birds maker Rovio Entertainmentannounced that it is moving ahead with plans for an initial share offering. The Finnish company, which has been profitable for the past year-and-a-half, was recently drawing an average of 80 million monthly users. Rovio’s announcement follows an IPO filing a few days earlier from another closely watched company, streaming media device and platform provider Roku.

Cryptos plummet on China ICO ban

• Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies took a dive after China’s central bank declared initial coin offerings (ICOs) illegal and called for related fundraising activity to stop. The selloff came on the heels of rapid gains for cryptos, which were approaching a collective market value of nearly $180 billion before the correction.

Lilium raises $90M for air taxis

• Lilium, a provider of air taxi service, has raised $90 million in a Series B round backed by Tencent, Atomico, LGT and Obvious Ventures. The three-year-old, Munich-based company uses all-electric vertical take-off and landing technology in aircraft that can fit up to five passengers.

VCs cleantech support dwindling

• Over the past five years, VCs have invested less in cleantech startups overall, and the capital they do disburse is increasingly focused on late-stage cleantech companies, a Crunchbase New analysis found. A lack of early-stage funding could be problematic down the road as it whittles the pipeline of innovative companies in the space.