Styra Secures Funding to Expand Cloud-Native Authorization Platform

With cloud-native applications becoming increasingly vital to organizational operations, a company founded by the developers of a widely-used open-source authorization tool has announced new funding. This investment will fuel its efforts to capitalize on the growing commercial opportunities within this space.

Series B Funding Details

Styra, the organization behind the Open Policy Agent, has raised $40 million in a Series B funding round. Battery Ventures led the investment, with participation from existing investors A. Capital, Unusual Ventures, and Accel. CapitalOne Ventures and Citi Ventures are new investors in this round.

CapitalOne, alongside e-commerce platform Zalando and the European Patent Office, are confirmed customers of Styra.

The Open Source Advantage

Styra is positioned to benefit from the inherent advantages of open-source technology: widespread adoption and increasing demand. The Open Policy Agent (OPA) is currently utilized across Kubernetes, containerized systems, and various other environments.

To date, OPA has accumulated over 75 million downloads, with approximately 1 million new downloads occurring each week. Notable companies like Netflix, Capital One, Atlassian, and Pinterest are leveraging OPA for their internal authorization needs.

Developer-Driven Adoption

CEO Bill Mann emphasized the pivotal role of developers in technology selection. “Developers are at the top of the food chain right now,” he stated. “They prioritize technologies that meet their specific requirements, and increasingly, that means open source.”

This represents a fundamental shift in the software landscape, where open-source solutions are often preferred over proprietary alternatives.

Addressing the Need for Managed Authorization

While some organizations possess the internal engineering resources to customize OPA, the substantial download numbers indicate a significant demand for tools that simplify management and customization. Many organizations may lack the capacity to build and maintain bespoke implementations.

Increased Demand for Robust Security

Styra’s growth has been particularly pronounced in the past year, driven by the shift to remote work, the proliferation of workloads across diverse environments, and the escalating need for enhanced security. Effective authorization is crucial when managing numerous access points.

As networks expand and become more complex, the challenges associated with authorization intensify. This has spurred the development of specialized startups and engineering teams focused on addressing these issues, including potential permission conflicts and security vulnerabilities.

Consequently, a unified authorization solution capable of securing the entire technology stack is becoming increasingly essential.

Future Development Plans

The newly acquired funding will be allocated to further product development. Styra plans to focus on creating more streamlined and efficient methods for applying authorization policies through code.

Expanding partnerships will also be a key priority, broadening the scope of Styra’s technology and its applicability.

Investor Perspective

Dharmesh Thakker, a general partner at Battery Ventures, expressed strong confidence in Styra’s team and progress. “We are extremely impressed with the Styra team and the progress they’ve made in this dynamic market to date,” he commented.

“Every organization migrating to the cloud and adopting containerized applications requires Styra for authorization—and, given the current remote-first work environment, cloud adoption is accelerating across the board.” Thakker will be joining Styra’s board of directors as part of this funding round.

Note: An investor was removed from the original text.