Denver-based software company Ping Identity announced $7.5 million in new funding Tuesday from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, one of the biggest names in the venture capital industry.
Ping will use most of the money to expand sales and marketing for its software, which aims to make Internet commerce faster and more secure.
Draper is a $3 billion fund with headquarters on Silicon Valley’s famed Sand Hill Road. It also funded Hotmail.
Draper managing director Raj Atluru said Ping interested him because it is a pioneer of federated identity, a new technology that allows Internet users to sign in once and then roam freely and securely to a huge variety of websites.
“(Ping) is now in the right position to take advantage of some of the larger opportunities,” Atluru said.
After 2 1/2 years of software development, Ping is now working with companies like Inovant, the technology unit of Visa, American Express and The Washington Post, in protecting the identity of their users on increasingly sophisticated websites.
Other huge competitors, such as Microsoft, IBM and Computer Associates, are racing Ping to develop similar software. The company has 34 employees in the U.S., 10 software programmers in Moscow, and will soon hire six new marketing people.
Ping had raised $5.8 million before the “Series B” $7.5 million round, which included Draper and Ping’s two previous investors – Fidelity Ventures and General Catalyst Partners.
Ping’s announcement came in the middle of Digital ID World, an Internet security conference organized by Denver-based tech guru Phil Becker and some of the founders of Ping. About 800 people are attending the conference, which wraps up Thursday at the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero in San Francisco.
Staff writer Ross Wehner can be reached at 303-820-1503 or rwehner@denverpost.com.
