Toronto-based cybersecurity tech startup 1Password lands $620M to help businesses secure their workers; now valued at $6.8 billion

Time flies! It was just like yesterday when 1Password raised $200 million after 17 years of bootstrapping. We first covered 1Password back in 2019 after the Toronto-based cybersecurity startup raised $200M Series A from Accel. A lot of changed since then. The startup has seen year-over-year growth as individuals and organizations turn to the company to keep their data safe.

To meet the growing demands for its products, 1Password announced on Wednesday it has raised $650 million in its latest round of funding led by ICONIQ Growth, with participation from existing investors Tiger Global, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Accel. 1Password is now valued at $6.8 billion, making it a member of the highly-coveted unicorn club. 1Password will use the latest cash infusion for strategic acquisitions to help grow the business.

Founded in 2005 by Dave Teare and Roustem Karimov, the Toronto, Canada-based 1Password is a secure, convenient password manager, providing businesses and families a safe way to share passwords, credit cards, and documents.

1Password’s technology makes it easier for employees to log into their company systems but also gives companies visibility into what apps employees are downloading without permission from their IT teams. 1Password keeps important information secure with AES 256-bit encryption. When employees leave the company the tech makes it easy to ensure they don’t keep access to the company systems.

1Password is used by millions of users and over 50,000 companies, its password manager is used to secure identities and sensitive data and provides businesses a safe way to share passwords, credit cards, and documents. In a statement, 1Password CEO Jeff Shiner said the company has more than tripled its headcount to about 570 and expects to double that again this year.

“Over the last couple of years, everybody has a higher level of inherent stress just from what’s going on in the world. And I think we’re starting to see some of the implications of that from a security point of view,” said Shiner.

Looking into the future, 1Password said it plans to help businesses tackle shadow IT—i.e., the use of applications by employees for work without the knowledge of the IT department. 1Password said that will include providing aggregated data to customers about what apps are being adopted by employees.

Shadow IT is “a real challenge, because it’s next to impossible to capture [this information] at the infrastructure layer,” Shiner said. “That’s one of the most-requested capabilities that we’ll be adding.”