Bitwarden acquires Passwordless.dev to assist corporations authenticate customers with out passwords • TechCrunch

Open supply password administration platform Bitwarden has made its first identified acquisition, snapping up a fledgling Sweden-based startup referred to as Passwordless.dev, which focuses on serving to builders combine passwordless authentication expertise into their software program.

The information comes shortly after 1Password and LastPass rival Bitwarden introduced its first outdoors funding since its inception in 2015, securing $100 million from PSG and Battery Ventures. The corporate additionally revealed on the time that it had raised a beforehand undisclosed Collection A spherical in 2019.

The password drawback

Much like different password administration providers, Bitwarden is designed to make it simpler for people and enterprises to routinely create hard-to-guess passwords, and retailer all of them in a safe vault. It’s all about serving to individuals to not re-use the identical predictable password throughout all their on-line providers. Bitwarden’s key promoting level, although, is that it’s open supply — or, a minimum of, it’s supply out there, which means that it guarantees full transparency into the codebase, whereas additionally permitting the neighborhood to contribute and assist develop new options.

Now, Bitwarden is seeking to capitalize on a burgeoning development within the on-line safety sphere, one that’s seeking to consign passwords to the historical past books — compromised passwords, in any case, are liable for most enterprise safety breaches.

Certainly, there was a concerted push towards passwordless authentication throughout the expertise panorama. Final yr, Apple, Google and Microsoft partnered in assist of a brand new password-free sign-in normal referred to as WebAuthn, whereas individually Apple launched a brand new characteristic referred to as Passkey that enables individuals to make use of their Apple machine to log-in to on-line providers with out passwords.

Elsewhere, passwordless-focused startups equivalent to Hypr, Magic, and Stytch have attracted VC {dollars} to bolster their respective efforts.

Bitwarden, for its half, already presents some assist for passwordless authentication, equivalent to biometric logins for Bitwarden’s personal apps, whereas it additionally helps bodily two-factor authentication (2FA) safety keys equivalent to YubiKey. However by bringing Passwordless.dev underneath its wing, Bitwarden desires to make it simpler for builders to bake native biometric sign-in smarts into their software program, whereas permitting enterprises to modernize their present functions that at present depend on passwords.

Based out of Sweden in 2020, Passwordless.dev has largely flown underneath the radar since its inception. However the firm supplies APIs constructed on WebAuthn, an internet normal developed by the FIDO Alliance and the World Vast Net Consortium (W3C) to assist safe password logins. Passwordless.dev basically makes it simpler for builders to deliver WebAuthn to software program with just a few strains of code, decreasing lots of the prices and complexities concerned in introducing passwordless authentication to software program.

Passwordless.dev permits corporations to implement password-free authentication in minutes

From immediately, Bitwarden has launched a brand new beta service referred to as Passwordless.dev by Bitwarden, which permits any third-party developer to embed biometric sign-in expertise equivalent to Contact ID, Face ID, and Home windows Howdy into their apps.

“This protects weeks of coding do-it-yourself passkey implementations,” Bitwarden CEO Michael Crandell defined to TechCrunch in an e-mail. “Enterprises even have enterprise functions that also depend on passwords for authentication and wish to present customers with passwordless experiences. Bitwarden Passwordless.dev helps them shortly add WebAuthn and passwordless authentication options into these functions.”

Passwordless.dev by Bitwarden shall be free by way of its preliminary beta interval in Q1 2023, after which the corporate mentioned it’ll provide paid plans that cowl sure ranges of utilization and options.

Whereas Bitwarden isn’t disclosing how a lot it paid for the startup or what number of staff it’s taking up as a part of the deal, it did verify that Passwordless.dev hasn’t raised any exterior funding in its two-plus years in existence, which means it seemingly didn’t break the financial institution for the acquisition.

Bitwarden additionally confirmed to TechCrunch that Passwordless.dev will proceed to be supplied to builders independently of different Bitwarden merchandise.