Britive, a Glendale-based cloud identity security company, is safeguarding its technology and platform with a recent patent award. Britive focuses on automating security and access management of cloud data, and helping companies monitor and control data access across multiple cloud services from one portal. Its platform manages more than 3.5 million cloud identities and is used by such companies as The Gap Inc., Toyota Motor Corp. and Forbes.
Art Poghosyan, the company’s chief executive and co-founder, said the patent award will give its team, customers and investors more confidence in Britive’s technology. Its platform uses just-in-time access and zero standing privilege practices to ensure data protection and safety. The two verify who is attempting to access a business’s data and evaluating the context of why they are requesting access. Access is granted if the given situation justifies it and is then revoked when the user’s task is done, or after a certain amount of time set by the owner. Britive also provides a single dashboard for companies to manage all the clouds they may have information and data on, as many businesses spread their data across multiple clouds.
“I think the patent also really signals to other technology players in the space that the world of technology is changing fast, and you really have to have something unique and relevant for this new world today,” Poghosyan said. “The innovation in this space is continuing to happen and will continue to happen. Britive now is a name that’s in the company of many other innovators. If nothing else, (the patent) is a badge of honor.”
Britive reported its year-over-year revenue growth from 2021 to 2022 was above 300% and it is targeting triple-digit growth this year. Britive’s technology is software as a service and is offered on a subscription basis, with the cost determined by the number of users and number of platforms being managed.
Poghosyan co-founded the company in 2018 with Alex Gudanis and Sameer Hiremath, and the three founders filed a patent application soon after launching Britive’s platform in 2020. Gudanis passed away in 2021, and Hiremath now serves as senior vice president of product and general manager. Poghosyan said that the approval process took significantly longer than he expected, even considering that the application was filed during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. He said that while the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office eventually agreed on the patentability of Britive’s technology, it was a “pretty rigorous process.”
“I think it was really about how the patent office and technical experts were trying to understand this technology versus some of the existing patents, because on the surface there’s a lot of technical jargon and terminology,” Poghosyan said. “It seemed similar (to other patents) but with us continuously providing the technical context … on why it’s unique and innovative and nothing like this exists yet, we were able to convince them and they got on board.”
Britive previously closed a $20.5 million series B funding round in March, led by Pelion Venture Partners. Poghosyan said that it may consider an additional funding round down the road but is currently “well-funded.” Britive plans to do some hiring through the next year and find new ways to meet customer needs.
“I think one direction we’re seeing very clearly start to emerge is needs around the (protection of data) in data warehouse technologies,” Poghosyan said. “So that’s one very interesting area we’re looking to work on (more closely) in 2024.”