Former Sun Microsystems CTO and ForgeRock co-founder Lasse Andresen has today announced his new startup, aiming to provide the identity layer for the decentralized Web.
San Francisco-based IndyKite has created open source technology to help developers build a map of every person, device, and asset across an organisation or network and use it to serve personalization and authorization services fit for the next evolution of the Web.
Designed with contexts like decentralised data, edge security, computer vision, and digital twins in mind, IndyKite’s Identity Knowledge Graph platform can be used to uncover rich, contextual insights that let business owners offer hyper-personalisation, recommendations, and discovery, while ensuring the data shared is private, compliant, confidential, and secure.
IndyKite is already bringing the potential of its technology to life with a number of projects:
- IndyKite is piloting a Digital Wallet (IndyKite.me) that will be available to organisations who want to allow citizens or customers the means to identify themselves or provide confirmation for sharing of their personal information. It can be used for both online and offline public and private services across the EU. Every EU citizen and resident in the Union will be able to use a personal digital wallet, and IndyKite’s framework is a perfect toolkit for organisations looking to activate these capabilities.
- With a partner in the financial services sector, IndyKite’s platform is being piloted for a fine-grained, contextual, yet private and confidential understanding of consumers’ needs and activities online. Here, the platform conceptualises a “Digital Twin” data construct. With rich contextual data defining identity attributes and security context, the platform will allow the partner to become a modern digital ‘broker’ of customer identity services alongside traditional offerings like payment, insurance, and finance.
- #OPENLEARNX is a collaboration between multiple organizations including IndyKite, Curriki and Red Hat, creating the world's first Education Technology Commons. This will be housed on the IBM Cloud at The Open Learning eXchange. "The ability to offer students and learning professionals control, and ultimately ownership, over their learning record is a fundamental goal of this project. IndyKite's vision of what a digital ID Wallet can achieve forms a core part of our alliance and partnership." says Leo Cunha, Curriki CTO.
- IndyKite’s Identity Knowledge Graph is a key service within indyRIOT’s software, which lets companies quickly launch their own fully-branded, independent community, and—most importantly—keep the ownership of their data while protecting people's privacy.
“No one has an identity on the Internet except what is created by governments or inside those private social databases. I want to own my digital identity. IndyKite will help me keep control of who uses it, and how.“ says Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems co-founder and a formal advisor to IndyKite.
“The relationship graphs that emerged in the beginning of the social web taught us identity is contextual, making ‘relationship-based access control’ an elegant solution to an age-old security problem,” says Andresen. “In the near future, an IoT device could ‘learn’ its access controls directly from the network it connects to, without needing someone to manually configure its access controls. This intelligence can also be applied to improve human identity access controls.”
The next step for a multi-billion dollar market
Identity and access management is already a double-digit billion dollar market that has seen significant IPOs for companies like Okta, Ping Identity, and ForgeRock,
Legacy companies on the market focus mainly on identifying humans. IndyKite takes a fresh approach that recognises that the intelligent web of the future will need devices, robots, and data to all have their own identities to fulfil the potential of a decentralised, data-rich web.
One important use for IndyKite’s technology will be in computer vision, and the company has formed a strategic technology partnership with experts in the field, RealNetworks and SAFR. “RealNetworks’ visual intelligence technology specializes in face- and person-based computer vision, so there’s real value in partnering with an identity focused company like Indykite,” says Andresen.
The launch is backed by a $2.5m pre-seed round co-led by Alliance Venture and Speedinvest.
Building on the potential of its own platform, IndyKite will shortly launch products including IndyKite.me—a digital wallet to help individuals manage their own data—and IndyKite.id, its own cloud identity platform designed to secure and manage human and non-person (IoT) identities.
“IndyKite aims to transform digital identity from a corporate liability into a business asset while giving end-users the ability to control and manage their personal data,” says Arne Tonning, Partner at Alliance Venture. “The IndyKite team has found the right architecture and approach to make this vision a reality.”
“We are thrilled to be working with Lasse and the team of identity experts he's assembled,” says Oliver Holle, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Speedinvest. “IndyKite's product shifts identity access management from a world full of technologies built on rigid data structures to one that can dynamically deal with data generated from billions of human and non-human entities.”
IndyKite will open in early access to select companies and individuals from November 11th, with general availability and the launch of IndyKite.me and IndyKite.id, plus an online developer community, from November 25th.