Bamboocloud’s current fundraise marks the largest single financing in the Chinese identity management and access control sector
Chinese identity management and access control (IAM) startup Shenzhen Zhuyun Technology, also known as Bamboocloud, has bagged the largest single financing in the Chinese IAM sector, bringing in RMB300 million (approximately US$44.4 million) in its Series C fundraise, according to a WeChat announcement by investor Beijing Kunlun Wanwei yesterday.
The company’s latest financing was raised from new investors Sequoia Capital China and Kunlun Capital, the investment arm of gaming and social media company Beijing Kunlun Wanwei, which focuses on technology, media and telecommunications, and high-tech companies, according to the statement.
The company had previously raised RMB100 million ($15 million approximately) from Oriental Fortune Capital and Fortune Venture Capital in May last year, according to a report by Volanews.
Bamboocloud’s early stage investors also include TopoScend Capital, China Development Investment Fund, Ziyu Capital, and Guangdong Technology Financial Group among others.
The fresh funding will be used towards product development and the deployment of Bamboocloud’s technology to innovative application scenarios such as Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) or cloud identity management, zero trust security, industrial Internet security, and smart cities, as well as towards the expansion of its business and ecosystem in key urban areas, the statement noted.
Founded in 2009, Bamboocloud claims to be the industry leader in China offering IAM and cloud application security, developing fully autonomous and controllable localized technology from an underlying code in-house, the statement noted.
Bamboocloud’s cloud-based platform leverages artificial intelligence to help enterprises ensure internet security, identify users reliably, and control user access to different company resources, while preventing unauthorized access and hidden attacks.
The company’s clientele of over 300 entities include several Chinese government ministries and commissions as well as business enterprises.
Notable names include the National Development and Reform Commission, China Merchants Bank, China Railway Group, China Life Insurance, CITIC Group, National Health Commission, National Information Center, energy giant Sinopec, automaker Dongfeng Motor, and smartphone maker Huawei among others.
According to the company, its cloud platform’s compatibility, ease of use, scalability, and reliability has been verified by Bamboocloud’s extensive experience in complex business scenarios where its technology has been implemented, including smart cities, digital government affairs, enterprise digital transformation and other benchmarking cases.
IAM is an emerging field in China. The industry’s growth has gained momentum with the accelerated digital transformation of governments and businesses, and an increased focus and investment towards constructing smart cities and new digital infrastructures, the statement said.
This has in turn created a need for process efficiency, network and information security, compliance supervision, and localization substitution, the statement noted.
Bamboocloud Founder and CEO Dong Ning noted in the statement that in the digital age, where each person and device has an independent identity, ensuring identity security will inevitably become the primary basis of organizational security and risk management.
“A highly agile, safe, and reliable identity management and access control platform which grants and revokes hundreds of billions of visits every day has become a necessity as governments in China at all levels are increasing their investment on building smart cities and new digital infrastructure,” he added.
This increasing demand for IAM has led to the contracted value of IAM products and services in the first half of 2020 at Bamboocloud exceeding its total orders for 2019, the statement noted.
It added that in the future, Bamboocloud will continue to increase investment in research and development and product upgrades, and work with industry partners to achieve fruitful results, in order to lead the digital transformation and industry development effort in the digital identity field.
Considering the impact of the global pandemic, the global IAM market is expected to grow at 14.5% CAGR from $12.3 billion in 2020 to $24.1 billion by 2025, almost doubling in five years. This is driven largely by increasing investment in IAM and its increasing need for Internet of Things technology, according to a report by Markets and Markets.
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