Forgerock announces Paul Madera to Board after receiving $30M Series C funding round led by Meritech Capital Partners

– USA, CA – ForgeRock Inc., the leading open platform provider of identity relationship management (IRM) solutions, announced today that it has received $30 million in its oversubscribed Series C round of funding. Meritech Capital Partners led the round and existing investors Accel Partners and Foundation Capital also participated. As part of the investment, Paul Madera, co-founder and managing director of Meritech, will be joining ForgeRock™ board of directors. The latest round brings the company’s total funding to $52 million. Building on the momentum of a banner year, the investment will accelerate disruptive product development and innovation, and increase ForgeRock’s global market share via expanded sales and marketing efforts.

Founded in 2010 and built on Sun Microsystems’ market-leading open-source identity projects, ForgeRock recognizes that customer-centric organizations require a new type of identity platform to harness the explosion of users, applications, devices, and “things” and the numerous relationships between them. Unlike traditional niche solutions focused on a portion of the required capability or traditional legacy suites comprised of bundles of products thrown together, ForgeRock developed the first and only open, unified, massively scalable identity relationship management platform purpose-built for delivering customer-facing solutions to any device or “thing,” on-premises or in the cloud. Today, ForgeRock has more than half a billion end users of its IRM solution in 30 countries and five continents.

“ForgeRock is pioneering IRM globally. With a brilliant team, exceptional growth and an expanding number of partnerships, the company has quickly moved from its European origins to become the worldwide category leader,” said Bruce Golden, partner at Accel Partners. “In just two years, ForgeRock has established a global footprint with headquarters in the U.S. and sales and support operations to assist customers anywhere they do business.”

“The winners and losers in today’s digital world will be determined by how they approach the issue of identity as they develop new offerings,” said Warren Weiss, general partner, Foundation Capital. “Those that utilize an identity platform like ForgeRock’s can quickly respond to the needs of their business. They can roll out new services to any device or thing more quickly than their competitors, and will have a distinct advantage in the market.”

“ForgeRock helps companies take visionary ideas and transform them into applications that can be delivered across any device or thing, harnessing the power of identity,” said Paul Madera, co-founder and managing director, Meritech Capital Partners. “ForgeRock’s high-scaling, flexible, open-source platform changes market dynamics by helping companies develop new revenue streams with better customer engagement in today’s connected world.”

“The IAM industry is undergoing a huge shift from IAM to IRM, and ForgeRock is leading the charge,” said Alex Ott, owner and founder of CrossContinentalVentures, a global provider of advisory services to entrepreneurs and ForgeRock board member. “The company recognized this shift early and is creating a disruption in the market by extending the value of identity where legacy vendors have failed to innovate. With ForgeRock’s open source approach, organizations can create a seamless experience when developing customer-focused services across users, applications, devices and things.”

“Oracle, CA and IBM’s IAM products fail to meet the demands of today’s digital enterprise. Their inability to seamlessly manage identities, at scale, across devices, people and things puts enterprise customers at risk and leads to missed opportunities,” said Mike Ellis, CEO, ForgeRock. “ForgeRock understands the customer relationship is more important now than ever before. We are causing a disruption in the market by securely enabling new revenue-driving business opportunities for our customers. Our large customer user-base includes many of the leaders in their respective industries and is a validation of ForgeRock’s innovation and impact on their businesses.”

About Accel

Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has a long history of partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses. Accel today invests globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto, New York City, London and Bangalore.

Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful companies, many of which have defined their categories, including Alfresco, Angry Birds (Rovio), Atlassian, Cloudera, ComScore, Dropbox, Facebook, Gameforge, Groupon, Imperva, Kayak, Playfish, QlikTech, Spotify, Supercell, Varonis and Wonga.

About Foundation Capital

Foundation Capital is dedicated to the proposition that one entrepreneur’s idea, with the right support, can become a business that changes the world. Foundation Capital has helped companies like Atheros create the mobile Internet, EnerNOC invent the energy demand response market, and Netflix revolutionize media distribution and consumption, among many others. Foundation Capital is currently invested in more than 80 high-growth ventures in the areas of consumer, information technology, software, semiconductors, and clean technology including BoardVantage, Chegg, Coverity, Lending Club, MobileIron, Simply Hired, Sunrun, TubeMogul and Venafi. Foundation Capital’s 22 IPOs include Control4, Envestnet, Financial Engines, Netflix, NetZero, Responsys and Silver Spring Networks.

About Meritech Capital

Meritech Capital Partners is one of the premier providers of late-stage venture capital to category-defining private technology companies and one of the top performing venture funds in the entire industry. With over $2.6 billion under management, Meritech invests in companies with proven and differentiated technology, massive market opportunities, accelerating revenue and experienced management teams. With one of the most prominent venture portfolios Meritech has a wealth of experience providing guidance on issues rapidly scaling companies commonly face including senior management hiring and compensation, IPO market timing and positioning, and M&A negotiating strategies. Meritech investments include such notable companies as Acclarent, BigFix, Broadsoft, Box, Cloudera, Cornerstone OnDemand, Evernote, Facebook, Fortinet, Greenplum, Lynda.com, Netezza, NetSuite, PopCap, Presidio, Riverbed, Ruckus Wireless, Salesforce.com, Sourcefire, SpringSource, Tableau Software, TeleAtlas, Yammer, Zipcar and Zulily.

About ForgeRock

ForgeRock, the fastest growing identity relationship management vendor in the world, is building secure relationships across the modern Web. Focused on using online identities to grow revenue, extend reach, and launch new business models, ForgeRock’s Open Identity Stack powers solutions for many of the world’s largest companies and government organizations. Founded in 2010, ForgeRock’s leadership team brings 80 combined years of experience in the software industry and includes open source icons and innovators, with investors from two of the leading global venture capital firms — Accel Partners and Foundation Capital.

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