After conversations with industry-leading CISOs and former members of the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, the founders of 1Kosmos realized that the methods for verifying identity in digital connections were fragmented and insufficient. This realization sparked the journey of 1Kosmos, a company driven by the vision of its founder, Hemen Vimadalal, who recognized the critical need for an identity-first approach to authentication and a simplified user experience. With decades of collective experience in successful cybersecurity ventures, the founding team, including Co-founder and CTO Rohan Pinto and Co-founder and CSO Mike Engle, aimed to address a significant gap in the market. Their goal was to create a unique solution that definitively ensures a user is who they claim to be. This led to the development of the 1Kosmos platform, which uniquely combines indisputable digital identity proofing with advanced biometrics and passwordless authentication, all while securing user data in an encrypted, private, and permissioned blockchain.
The company officially launched, exiting stealth mode on February 16, 2021, with a significant $15 million Series A funding round led by Forgepoint Capital. This funding provided the necessary backing to propel 1Kosmos's mission forward: to provide individuals with a secure digital identity, giving them control over their credentials, and to empower service providers to combat identity fraud effectively. 1Kosmos set out to revolutionize how users interact with systems and applications by eliminating the vulnerabilities associated with traditional password-based security and separate multi-factor authentication methods. The platform was designed to be easily embedded into mobile apps via an SDK, delivered as a cloud service, or offered as a Credential Service Provider managed service. Over the years, 1Kosmos has achieved significant milestones, including record-breaking growth, a major blanket purchase agreement with Login.gov, and the launch of innovative products like the 1Kosmos 1Key biometric security key. The company performs millions of authentications daily for a diverse range of clients, including government agencies and some of the world's largest organizations in banking, telecommunications, higher education, and healthcare. With a commitment to core values such as leadership, collaboration, accountability, passion, and diversity, 1Kosmos continues to innovate and expand its footprint in the identity proofing and passwordless authentication market, aiming to lead the industry into a new era of secure and seamless digital identity solutions.
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