Stormpath

Stormpath operated as a focused provider of identity management and user authentication solutions, specifically catering to software developers. The company was established in 2010 by co-founders Alex Salazar and Les Hazlewood and was headquartered in San Mateo, California. Salazar, the CEO, brought a unique blend of engineering and go-to-market experience, with a computer science degree from Georgia Tech, an MBA from Stanford, and prior roles at IBM. Hazlewood served as the CTO. Together, they identified the market need for a developer-centric identity API early on.

The firm's core business was providing a customer identity API that enabled development teams to build, secure, and scale user management into their web and mobile applications. This service was designed to offload the complexities of creating and maintaining identity infrastructure, allowing developers to concentrate on their application's primary features. Stormpath's platform handled functionalities such as user registration, password and token-based authentication, password resets, API security, and access control. It offered features like single sign-on (SSO), social logins, multi-tenancy, and robust security measures to protect user data. The business model centered on providing this identity infrastructure as a service, accessible via a REST API with official SDKs for numerous popular programming languages and frameworks, including Java, .NET, Node.js, and Python.

Stormpath secured a total of $24.7 million in funding over three rounds from investors including New Enterprise Associates, Scale Venture Partners, and Pelion Venture Partners. The company's trajectory culminated in its acquisition by Okta on March 6, 2017. The acquisition was a strategic move by Okta to bolster its own developer offerings and accelerate its platform strategy, integrating Stormpath's team and technology. Following the acquisition, Stormpath's services were phased out as they were integrated into Okta's product suite, and the team joined Okta to enhance its developer platform.

Keywords: user authentication, identity management API, developer tools, access control, user management, API security, single sign-on, token authentication, customer identity, authorization management, Stormpath, Alex Salazar, Les Hazlewood, Okta acquisition, identity as a service, IDaaS, REST API, developer-first, application security, user data store, multi-tenancy, SDKs, authentication service