Expanding the Forefront of Identity and Access Management in Financial Services – Announcing our Series A Investment in Cerby

We’ve been looking to invest in Identity and Access Management (IAM) companies because identity compromise is the largest cause of breaches (‘hacks’) for large US businesses. We all experience the most common form of identity breach, phishing attacks, where attackers send emails or texts asking us to log into a fake website so that they can steal our login credentials. These attacks are especially common against financial services companies and fintechs because those companies engage in the flow of payments.

While there have been significant technical advances in IAM over the past decade, including solutions from companies like Okta,Duo Security, and Ping Identity; they have focused primarily on a small number of highly secure applications, and have typically ignored whole areas like mobile apps, social media apps, or legacy code that cannot conform to modern standards. The effect is that 95% of the applications actually used by an enterprise are not covered by proper security standards, and more than half of all large businesses have experienced a cybersecurity incident caused by their inability to properly secure their employee login information.

This is why we are pleased to announce our Series A investment in Cerby, the comprehensive access management platform for non-standard applications. We’re thrilled to be investing in this round alongside Two Sigma Ventures, as well as participating investors Ridge Ventures, Founders Fund, Bowery Capital, AV8, Salesforce Ventures, Tau Ventures, Okta Ventures, Incubate Fund, and Ben Johnson, co-founder of Obsidian Security and Carbon Black.

Cerby has built a unique technical platform to help solve the identity access management needs across non-standard and disconnected applications, developing a fully connected identity mesh that works for all applications. Cerby’s software solution enables IT teams and CISOs to not only implement access management controls on non-standard apps, but also enforce authentication tasks like MFA (multi-factor authentication) as well as custom role-based access controls (RBAC) and posture management (onboarding, offboarding, password rotation, etc.) tasks.

While all industries face these IAM challenges, here at Outpost Ventures (with our unique and deep understanding of the financial industry as an investment platform of Neuberger Berman) we see a plethora of immediate need to better secure the applications used across the financial services industry. In a 2021 report released by the IMF, they state “the assessment that a major cyberattack poses a threat to financial stability is axiomatic— not a question of if, but when.” It is critical for financial institutions to not only do all they can to prevent cyber attacks, but importantly have tools in place, like those Cerby offers, to quickly and effectively resolve and secure the environment.

About the Cerby Team

Since the day we met with CEO, Belsasar Lepe, and team, we were impressed not only by Cerby’s unique approach to address the challenges facing enterprises when looking to secure non-standard applications but also Bel and the entire team's passion and humbleness in their approach to building their organization.

The exceptional team include CEO, Belsasar Lepe, former CTO and founder of Ooyala; CTO Vidal Gonzalez, former CTO and Founder of Wizeline; Chief Trust Officer, Matt Chiodi, former CSO at Palo Alto Networks and team members from organizations including Okta and Cognizant. We are honored to partner with them all on this next stage of their journey.

About Outpost Ventures

Outpost Ventures, an investment platform of Neuberger Berman, invests in early stage enterprise, fintech and b2b software companies. We provide collaborative capital, support and expertise to founders rooted in our teams deep operating and investing experience. We continue to actively invest and partner with exceptional teams and are always excited to connect with founders.