HYPR raises $35M Series C led by Advent International

NEW YORK, NY, April 20, 2021 – HYPR, The Passwordless Company™ today announced it has raised $35 million in a Series C financing, doubling the company’s total funding to over $70 million. The investment is led by Advent International through Advent Tech, the firm’s dedicated global technology fund. Advent has significant experience in cyber technology, including recent early-stage investments in Wiz and Cyware.

The Series C investment comes amid significant momentum for HYPR as it grows market share and the global workforce pivots to a flexible workplace model.

HYPR will leverage the capital to accelerate its go-to-market strategy and grow its global support organization in an effort to eliminate passwords for businesses worldwide. Advent joins HYPR’s existing investors including RRE Ventures, .406 Ventures, BoldStart, Top Tier Capital, MESH, Alumni Ventures Group, Allen & Co, Samsung NEXT and Mastercard.

“Removing passwords for customers and employees eliminates a critical cybersecurity vulnerability, lowers IT support costs, and improves the overall user experience,” said Ashwin Krishnan, a Principal on Advent’s technology team in New York. “HYPR is a leading player in the emerging passwordless space, and has proven its ability to deliver for a large and diverse group of customers. We are incredibly excited to partner with HYPR, and believe the company is well-positioned for continued growth.”

An estimated 300 billion passwords are used worldwide. Yet passwords remain the #1 cause of cybersecurity breaches, over 80 percent of which are due to compromised credentials. The pandemic and a swift global transition to work-from-home have expanded the attack surface for cybercriminals, highlighting the security risk, high costs, and user friction caused by passwords and password-based multi-factor authentication (MFA).

HYPR’s True Passwordless MFA™ technology has made it easy for businesses to go passwordless by combining the convenience of a smartphone with the security of a smart card. The company emphasizes user experience and takes a standards-based approach to empower IT and security teams to eliminate phishing, fraud, and friction.

“The shift to remote work has propelled passwords to the top of every security organization’s list of priorities. As the sophistication and volume of cyber-attacks grows, we’re seeing unprecedented urgency for a solution to the password problem,” said George Avetisov, HYPR Co-Founder and CEO. “We are thrilled to partner with Advent to truly accelerate the elimination of passwords. This investment will double the size of our team and expand our product delivery as we empower companies across the globe to go passwordless.”

Since announcing its Series B funding in October 2019, HYPR has grown its annual recurring revenue (AAR) by more than 300 percent, driven by key milestones including:

• More than doubling HYPR’s customer base of global brands such as Norwegian Airlines, Point72, Rakuten, Otis Worldwide, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, CVS Health, Fiserv, and City National Bank;
• Delivering passwordless MFA to more than 20 verticals, including financial services, energy, automotive, healthcare, education, and government;
• Deploying workforce login solutions at scale across a diverse array of customers, ranging from 50-person firms to enterprises with 300,000 employees and hundreds of millions of customers;
• Surpassing more than 100 million licenses sold for the company’s customer authentication solution, spurred by a steep rise in fraud and PSD2 regulations; and
• Expanding the HYPR Velocity Partner Program with a founding network of 30 industry leading experts, including solution resellers, system integrators, and technology partners.

“When we partnered as a first check investor in HYPR, the phrase “passwordless” was relatively unknown. Today the space has heated up tremendously as enterprises scramble to eliminate passwords, especially in light of the pandemic,” said Ed Sim, Founder and Managing Partner of BOLDStart Ventures. “The HYPR team saw where the puck was heading and we couldn’t be prouder of what they’ve built or more excited about the path forward with Advent, an ideal partner given their cybersecurity experience.”

HYPR is headquartered in New York City, with teams in Boston, California, London, and Tokyo. HYPR intends to double the global headcount, with hiring ongoing in every department.