UPDATED 13:05 EDT / SEPTEMBER 06 2022

SECURITY

Bitwarden reels in $100M for its open-source password manager

Bitwarden Inc., the developer of a popular open-source password manager, today disclosed that it has raised $100 million in new funding.

The funding round was led by growth equity firm PSG with participation from existing investor Battery Ventures.

Santa Barbara, California-based Bitwarden offers a password manager of the same name that is used by millions of consumers. The startup provides the software for free under an open-source license and sells paid versions that include more advanced features. Additionally, Bitwarden sells an enterprise version of its password manager that the startup says has been adopted by tens of thousands of companies.

The consumer version of Bitwarden enables users to store passwords, as well as other data such as payment card numbers, in a secure software environment. Bitwarden automatically enters passwords into application login menus to save time for consumers. The platform also offers a number of other features, including tools that can automatically generate passwords.

The enterprise version of Bitwarden includes an additional set of cybersecurity capabilities. According to the startup, its platform detects employee passwords that may be easy for hackers to guess and notifies administrators. A built-in monitoring tool collects data about how users interact with a company’s Bitwarden deployment to ease the task of detecting potentially malicious activity.

Large organizations typically use multiple cybersecurity products to protect their applications. Bitwarden can integrate with several third-party cybersecurity products, including companies’ single sign-on software. Single sign-on is a technology that enables employees to log into multiple work applications at once, which improves the user experience and eases certain cybersecurity tasks for administrators. 

Bitwarden’s new round will enable the startup to expand its go-to-market initiatives. In parallel, Bitwarden intends to broaden its platform’s feature set. 

The startup plans to invest in features that will make it easier for software developers to manage secrets, or sensitive pieces of data used by an application. An application’s secrets include, for example, the encryption key that it uses to protect user data. Bitwarden pointed to password logins as another focus of its product development roadmap. 

“You will also see Bitwarden expand those efforts into areas such as passwordless, with new login options between Bitwarden clients, and developer solutions, to assist in the expansion of developer cloud deployments so prevalent today,” Bitwarden Chief Executive Officer Michael Crandell detailed in a blog post.

Bitwarden’s funding round comes less than a year after rival 1Password, a Toronto-based startup incorporated as AgileBits Inc., raised $620 million from investors. Like Bitwarden, 1Password’s growth strategy places an emphasis on providing cybersecurity tools for developers. The startup offers a service called Secrets Automation alongside its flagship password manager that developers can use to manage application secrets.

Image: Pixabay

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