1Password made two big announcements this week: the first is the launch of mobile passkey support; the second is that the company has surpassed $250 million ARR, with B2B sales growing 50 percent year-over-yearn and now accounting for two-thirds of the company’s total revenue.
Which is more important?
“Everybody’s trying to run their own business. Apple’s trying to sell you devices. Google’s trying to sell you ads. Our job is only to make you more secure.”
– Jeff Shiner,
1Password CEO
Well, passkeys are a pretty big deal, promising to fundamentally shift how we engage with the internet—hopefully in a more convenient and secure way (but there are caveats with that promise).
But the convenience of passkeys in some ways undermines 1Password’s traditional value propositions: easily generating secure passwords, and easily managing those secure passwords. Passkeys, in some ways, makes this stuff brainless (it’s why there’s all this hype about the ‘death of the password’), and with major platforms like Google and Apple suddenly very interested in this stuff…
Let me put it this way: in the mobile tech decade, I saw a lot of great companies become a feature in somebody else’s product as those features were commoditized, and the promise of passkeys is that digital identity, logging in, etc. become a safe, convenient commodity.
So, 1Password’s revenue numbers, and particularly its B2B growth, might be the more important news.
On this week’s podcast, 1Password CEO Jeff Shiner talks about all of it: the tech behind passkeys, the opportunities, the risks posed by generative AI, how 1Password has evolved over the last 20 years, and will continue to evolve in the passwordless era.
I also push him to talk a little bit about the competition, and whether passkeys will make his company a feature in Apple or Google’s product. But Shiner doesn’t seem that concerned, and he’s been remarkably consistent on this front over the years. He seemed more excited to talk about 1Password’s B2B (or B2B2C?) offerings—pay attention to how he talks about what passkeys mean for a brand like Canadian Tire.
So how is this next phase of the internet going to play out? And what role will 1Password play in it?
Let’s dig in.
Learn from the biggest exit success stories, and connect & network with fellow tech leaders, investors and advisors – the ones that make the deals happen.
Develop your M&A strategy on Wednesday, October 25, 2023, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Early Bird tickets end September 28th!
Subscribe via: RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, YouTube
The BetaKit Podcast is hosted by Douglas Soltys & Rob Kenedi. Produced & edited by Kattie Laur. Feature image courtesy Web Summit.