Bhavik Koladiya's OTPless bags $3.5M in pre-Series A round led by Sidbi

BharatPe co-founder Bhavik Koladiya's venture OTPless has raised $3.5 million in a pre-Series A round led by Sidbi (Small Industries Development Bank of India).

The round also saw participation from Venture Highway, FJ Labs, and Piper Serica.

The Surat-based customer identity and access management startup plans to use the funds to expand its global presence and broaden its service offerings beyond authentication, to include authorisation. This would entail not only identifying users but also determining the permissions they have, said the company.

"Our vision is to revolutionise user authentication by making it simpler, faster, and more secure. This funding will help us scale our operations and enhance our technology to meet the growing global demand," said Koladiya.

"We are committed to providing the best possible experience for our users and partners, and this investment will enable us to continue innovating and expanding our capabilities," he added.

The latest round of funding brings OTPless’ total funds raised to $6.5 million.

OTPless, as its name suggests, aims to eliminate one-time passwords and instead allow users to sign up and sign in on websites and apps via accounts, including Google, iMessage, Microsoft, Github, Slack, and UPI, and modern protocols such as passkeys, network authorisation, protected SMS, and device fingerprinting.

Developers can easily integrate OTPless's SDKs and APIs, going live within minutes using pre-built user interfaces, or customise from scratch, the company said in a release.

OTPless's platform also has a silent network authentication system in collaboration with telecom operators, which enables the system to verify user identity without any user input, using the mobile network for seamless authentication.

With over 5,000 companies and 20,000 developers globally leveraging OTPless, the platform authenticates more than 30 million users, said the company.

The startup is led by fintech unicorn BharatPe's founding members, Bhavik Koladiya, Satyam Nathani, and Tanmay Sagar.

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"Sidbi Venture Capital Ltd is proud to support OTPless in its mission to revolutionise authentication," said Debraj Banerjee, Senior Fund Manager at Sidbi Venture Capital Limited.

"Their innovative approach aligns with our commitment to fostering technological advancements that enhance security and user experience. We believe OTPless has the potential to become a global leader in the IAM (identity and access management) space, and we are excited to be part of their journey."