Cybersecurity Startup Aembit Launches With $16.6M in Total Funding to Bring Identity-First Security to Workloads

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Mar 20, 2023, 10:00 ET

Backed by Ballistic Ventures and Ten Eleven Ventures, Aembit is Forging a New Category of Workload Identity and Access Management (IAM)

SILVER SPRING, Md., March 20, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Aembit, the identity platform that lets DevOps and Security teams discover, manage, enforce, and audit access between federated workloads, announced its official launch alongside $16.6M in seed financing from cybersecurity specialist investors Ballistic Ventures and Ten Eleven Ventures. The company was recently recognized as a Cool Vendor in the 2022 Gartner® Cool Vendors™ in Identity-First Security report¹. Aembit helps companies apply a zero trust security framework to workload access, similar to existing solutions for workforce access, by providing seamless and secure access from workloads to the services companies depend on, like APIs, databases, and cloud resources.

Co-Founders Kevin Sapp (left), and David Goldschlag (right) (PRNewsfoto/Aembit)

Application architecture has radically changed in the past decade. Applications used to be monolithic and standalone, but are now distributed worldwide, and include APIs, databases, SaaS services, and partner workloads. As applications become more distributed and complex, DevOps and Security teams face the difficult challenge of scaling secure access, giving security teams visibility, and ensuring developers can focus on building business-critical functionality. Inadequate management of workload identities, access, and privileges are a fundamental cause of security breaches. Two relevant examples include the recent T-Mobile breach, in which data affiliated with 37 million customer accounts was stolen through an exploited API, and the recent CircleCI breach, in which a system breach prompted the company to urge its customers to rotate their secrets.

Aembit solves the problem of secure access between workloads with a cloud-based platform that is easy for DevOps and Security teams to deploy and frictionless for developers to adopt, letting teams focus on managing access, not secrets. Aembit's pioneering approach leverages new techniques, such as secretless authentication and credential providers, as well as no-code integrations to simplify secure access for developers. With Aembit, teams can facilitate safe application development and delivery in today's distributed application environment, including the following use cases:

Secure access between workloads and custom APIs, API gateways, or APIs from third-party SaaS providers;
Secure access between workloads and databases, data warehouses, and data lakes; and
Secure access between workloads in multi-cloud environments.

Co-founders David Goldschlag and Kevin Sapp have worked together for over 17 years, and have a history of solving challenging problems in the IAM space. Their experience includes founding New Edge Labs, which became Netskope's Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) offering. As developers and engineers, Goldschlag and Sapp have significant practical experience and empathy for the workload identity challenges encountered by DevOps, Developer, and Security teams. "We see ourselves in our customers because we have been in their shoes. We're excited to be able to offer a solution that makes secure access easy and scalable for DevOps and Developer teams, while giving Security teams visibility and audit capabilities," said Goldschlag, Aembit's CEO.

"At Ten Eleven, we're always looking for innovations that can make cybersecurity implementation more seamless and comprehensive for organizations. Identity is now understood to be foundational for securing human access, and now is the time to use Identity to secure non-human access too. The Aembit founders are the team most uniquely suited to solving this important challenge. We can't wait to see them grow their product and company over the next few years," said Mark Hatfield, Co-founder and General Partner at Ten Eleven Ventures.

"Enterprises have spent significant resources securing the connections between people and the software they use. However, as businesses move to the cloud, a new and fast growing attack surface has emerged. The mesh of workload-to-workload connections created when software talks to other software need to be identified, secured and managed. Aembit is defining this new category of Workload IAM to defend enterprises' most critical digital assets. It's been an honor to work with the Aembit founders since day 1 and to continue to support them on their journey," said Jake Seid, Co-founder and General Partner of Ballistic Ventures.

DevOps teams can secure their workloads with Aembit for free. Learn more at aembit.io.

References:
¹Gartner, Cool Vendors in Identity-First Security, Brian Guthrie, Henrique Teixeira, et al.., 17 November 2022.
https://www.gartner.com/document/4021275 (subscription required) GARTNER and COOL VENDORS are registered trademarks and service marks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner Disclaimer
Gartner, Cool Vendors in Identity-First Security, Brian Guthrie, Henrique Teixeira, et al.., 17 November 2022.
Gartner Cool Vendor report: https://www.gartner.com/document/4021275 (subscription required) GARTNER and COOL VENDORS are registered trademarks and service marks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Aembit

Aembit is the Workload Identity Platform that lets DevOps and Security teams discover, manage, enforce, and audit access between workloads. Aembit provides seamless and secure access from your workloads to the services they depend on, like APIs, databases, and cloud resources, while simplifying application development and delivery. DevOps teams can secure their workloads with Aembit for free at aembit.io. Follow us on Twitter at @aembit_io or on LinkedIn.

About Ten Eleven Ventures

Ten Eleven Ventures is the original cybersecurity-focused, global, stage agnostic investment firm. The firm finds, invests, and helps grow top cybersecurity companies addressing critical digital security needs, tapping its team, network, and experience to help build successful businesses. Since its founding, Ten Eleven Ventures has raised over $US 1 billion and made over 40 cybersecurity investments across stages worldwide, including KnowBe4, Darktrace, Axis Security, Twistlock, Verodin, Cylance, and Ping Identity. For more information, please visit www.1011vc.com or follow us on Twitter @1011vc.

About Ballistic Ventures

Ballistic Ventures is a venture capital firm solely dedicated to early-stage cybersecurity and cyber-related companies. The partners have spent their entire careers defending against every cyber threat conceivable. Members of the firm have founded, operated, and funded over 90 successful cybersecurity firms – including Abnormal Security, AlienVault, Arbitrum (Offchain Labs), ArcSight, Arkose Labs, Fortify, Interos, ISS, Mandiant, and Shape Security – led over 10,000 security professionals globally, and have 40+ years of experience in venture capital. Our experience provides entrepreneurs impactful support from people focused on the same mission. Our networks and relationships open doors for our founders. Learn more at ballisticventures.com.

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SOURCE Aembit