Passbolt, a new type of credential and access manager for organisations of all sizes announced it has raised $8 million in Series A financing for its all-in-one open source-based collaborative password and access software.
The company was founded in December 2016. Previous funding was pre-seed of $620,000 in December 2018 and $3.1 million seed funding that closed in January 2021.
Series A
The Series A round was led by new investor Airbridge Equity Partners (Netherlands). Existing investors that include Expon Capital’s Digital Tech Fund, ScaleFund, Seeder, Dedicated, Bondi Capital, Carricha Capital, and LBAN also participated, along with industry veterans such as Christophe Bianco (co-founder of Excellium Services) and Xavier Buck (co-founder of Datacenter Luxembourg).
"Organisations are trapped between consumer-focused password managers and complex monolithic enterprise solutions that don't meet the need for secure collaboration of agile teams operating in digital environments," said Kevin Muller, co-founder and CEO of Passbolt.
New credential and access manager
"We're building a new type of credential and access manager for organisations of all sizes. It enables technical teams to collaboratively manage access to the organisation’s IT, software development, and security infrastructure."
"At the same time, it allows the broader workforce to automatically log into productivity tools and to share access credentials with colleagues securely."
Funding implementation
The funding will be used to accelerate product development and meet complex security and regulatory requirements
The funding will be used to accelerate product development and meet complex security and regulatory requirements, with the first milestone being the next major release, Passbolt 5.0.
That will extend capabilities for the more than 400,000 daily active users globally. It will also enable scaling international sales and marketing to support global operations and customer success, having already onboarded more than 40,000 organisations and 2,000 paid customers worldwide.
Secure remote access
The analyst firm Gartner projects that the PAM market will grow to $2.8 billion by 2027, emphasising that demand for PAM solutions spans organisations of all sizes, from large enterprises to small- and mid-size businesses (SMBs), significantly broadening the market potential.
Among the key drivers fueling adoption, Gartner highlights the growing demand for secure remote access by external contractors, the surge in remote work, and the widespread use of mobile devices.
Enterprise-grade solution
“Legacy password managers like Keepass or Bitwarden and Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions such as CyberArk fall short for today's cross-functional, distributed, and agile teams,” said Rick van Boekel, managing partner at Airbridge Equity Partners (Netherlands).
“Passbolt’s organic traction across various industries confirms the demand for a more collaborative, enterprise-grade solution, and their impressive SaaS metrics prove that Passbolt users are delighted with the solution offered.”
API centric, versatile platform
Passbolt provides an application programming interface (API), a centric, versatile platform that collaboratively manages and protects accounts, credentials, and secrets used by both people (system administrators, broader workforce, and others) as well as machines (systems or applications) across various devices.
It supports not just passwords, but all organisational credentials – from root accounts, SSH keys, API keys, non-human credentials, or key-value secrets for infrastructure access to simple web logins and Time-based One-Time Passwords (TOTPs), a common method of two-factor authentication (2FA) or multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Self-hosting capabilities and customisation
The platform can be deployed in minutes in the cloud or on any server and integrates with existing tools
Passbolt is also fully open source and allows for unparalleled control with self-hosting capabilities and flexible customisation to match company policies and regulatory needs.
The company’s portfolio includes a full-fledged free community edition (Passbolt CE) and a commercial enterprise edition (Passbolt Pro) that comes with support, as well as a SaaS offering (Passbolt Cloud). The platform can be deployed in minutes in the cloud or on any server and integrates with existing tools while providing the granular controls and audit trails that organisations require to ensure security.
Access management
“Since the very first funding round, we have supported Passbolt in its mission to transform password and access management for modern teams," said Alain Rodermann, partner at Expon Capital (Luxembourg).
“We are thrilled to see Passbolt achieve this new funding milestone and continue innovating to serve thousands of organisations worldwide.”
Diverse applications
“We’ve backed Passbolt from the start, witnessing its rapid adoption and commitment to continuous innovation,” said Gauthier van der Elst, fund partner at ScaleFund (Belgium), and Passbolt board member.
“Passbolt's approach naturally enables expanding from passwords to all organisational credentials. Its diverse use cases and customer base promise an exciting future. We’re thrilled to join forces again and support the team’s ambitious global growth plans.”
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