Auth0 announced the definitive agreement to be acquired by Okta for approximately $6.5 Billion. Auth0 had us join a part of their journey in 2018 when we invested in their Series D. Since then we have seen the Identity as a Service (IDaaS) market grew rapidly, and Auth0 has become the emerging leader of the category.
Our thesis was simple: as business interactions move online, authentication will be critical across industries. Since developers need to, but don’t want to, take care of authentication, the product that is built for and loved by developers will win this market. That product is Auth0.
Early in our relationship, we had the opportunity to travel with Eugenio and Matias in Japan, visiting potential customers and a community of engineers and technology executives. What struck us through the journey was their authentic passion for identity management, and for building the company in their own way.
Auth0’s origin story epitomizes their authentic passion for identity management. Prior to founding the company, Eugenio, Matias, and the team wrote a book about identity and access control for fellow engineers to unpack the complexity of authentication. Shortly after the first version was published, the team had to add so many more new pages to the book to keep up with technology changes. Realizing that adding more pages was not the best way to help fellow engineers, Eugenio and Matias decided to build a product that developers can use, instead of updating the book. The result is Auth0, a highly extendable and customizable identity platform that reflects their deep empathy for developers.
Just as much as they carefully built the product, they built their company with tremendous care. As evidenced by their impeccable Glassdoor scores and awards for their workplace, Auth0 has built an amazing culture that reflects the team’s values. Their commitment to intellectual honesty and focus on making progress is reflected in their cultural mottos such as “We give a shit” and “N+1 > N.”
When a world-class product is married with world-class go-to-market execution by a talented team, the result is consistently high growth. Watching how Auth0 executes their vision from a front-row seat and working together on cultivating the Japan market for their leading technology was an absolute privilege.
The world is increasingly driven by software, and more companies will need Auth0. We are excited for the future of Auth0 as they team up with Okta, another leader in the identity space.
On behalf of everyone at WiL, congratulations to Eugenio, Matias, and the entire Auth0 team on this tremendous milestone!