The login screen is one of the most unremarkable parts of an application, but it represents big business for providers such as Auth0 Inc. The startup, which helps companies add secure sign-in features to their services, today announced that it has raised a $103 million funding round at more than a $1 billion valuation.

Returning backer Sapphire Ventures led the Series E investment. It was joined by Bessemer Venture Partners, Meritech Capital Partners and a number of other institutional investors.

Auth0 sells an identity management platform that removes the need for software teams to build application login workflows from scratch. Auth0 provides ready-to-use authentication modules that allow users to sign in with social media accounts, G Suite, Office 365 or a traditional username and password.

Companies can choose which login methods to enable for a service based on their security needs. For high-priority workloads, such as applications containing business data, Auth0 provides the ability to enable multifactor authentication through a mobile client called Guardian. Users have to verify each login attempt by tapping a button in the app interface before they’re granted access.

Auth0 also offers a number of more specialized features aimed primarily at enterprises. It provides single sign-on support, which allows companies with a lot of internal applications to let workers use a single set of login credentials across all their internal services. Moreover, Auth0’s features lend themselves to securing access requests that don’t involve humans users, such as when an analytics system tries to access a record from a database.

Auth0 processes 2.5 billion login requests every month for more than 7,000 customers. Nvidia Corp., Harvard Medical School and Dow Jones & Co. are some of the organizations that rely on the startup’s platform to secure their applications.

The startup claims to have seen a twofold increase in “customer growth” over the past year while also doubling revenues on the back of the new demand. That helps explain its new $1 billion valuation, which makes Auth0 the latest name on the already lengthy list of unicorn startups in the cybersecurity market. The funding comes just days after another security unicorn, endpoint protection provider CrowdStrike Inc., filed to go public on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Photo: Auth0