JanRain Scores $3M Series A For OpenID Expansion, Web Log-In Relief
By Scott Denne, VentureWire
Anyone who uses the Internet with any frequency has to keep track of dozens of user names and passwords. For years, some of the biggest names in technology have talked of abandoning that system for one that would give every person a single Web identity. Now JanRain has secured $3.25 million in Series A funding to help make it happen.
DFJ Frontier led the round, with participation from RPM Ventures and Anthem Venture Partners. All are new to the company. The company declined to disclose its valuation.
JanRain's RPX service enables Web sites to participate in the OpenID platform. Doing so allows visitors to those sites to log in to the Web site using another account with another Web site, such as Facebook, Google or Yahoo.
"This is a value proposition that every consumer can understand," said David Cremin, a managing director with DFJ Frontier. For Web site operators, the service is valuable because they can still learn about their visitors, without trying to make them fill out registration forms, he said.
Since OpenID is an open standard, any company can implement it on its own, but that means diverting engineering resources away from the core business to build the system into the Web site and work to keep it current, Cremin said. JanRain provides "grease to get yourself into the OpenID world."
"The use of a single ID has already happened in the corporate environment, but users on the Internet don't have the ability to have the same experience," said Brian Kissel, the company's chief executive.
"Unless you have a really compelling reason to register [on a Web site], most people don't," Kissel said. "It's harder to serve your customers well if they're all anonymous visitors."
Since launching in December 2008, its services have been used on 17,000 Web sites and it has lined up customers such as EMI Group, Fox News, KickApps Corp. and the Republican National Committee.
Portland, Ore.-based JanRain was founded in 2005 by Larry Drebes, its vice president of engineering. Drebes had previously founded Desktop.com and Four11 Corp., whose core product eventually became Yahoo! Mail after Yahoo! Inc. acquired the company in 1997 for $92 million.
The proceeds of the round will be used to expand its sales and marketing staff, Kissel said.
As a result of the round, Cremin of DFJ Frontier, as well as Tony Grover, a managing director of RPM Ventures, and Samit Varma, a partner at Anthem Venture Partners, will join JanRain's board of directors.
