From Developer to Cyber Security Entrepreneur with $10M Revenue and $18M Funding: LoginRadius CEO Deepak Gupta (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What were the components of the full authentication?

Deepak Gupta: We did a user name and password with social login. We were managing the full login and registration. Pretty much the whole element of login, registration, forgot password, and user activation.

Sramana Mitra: Were you still just within the Drupal ecosystem?

Deepak Gupta: No, we grew in other marketplaces. Even e-commerce was getting traction.

Sramana Mitra: You had plugins for Shopify marketplace?

Deepak Gupta: Yes, and some of the other e-commerce platforms also.

Sramana Mitra: You had the full authentication suite for small businesses to manage their login. Secondly, you were going to all these marketplaces and creating connectors .

Deepak Gupta: Right.

Sramana Mitra: Where are we now in the trajectory?

Deepak Gupta: In 2016, we started the full authentication product. We started experimenting. This authentication model worked for us. The churn was very low once the customers started using the product. We are, pretty much, managing the full registration and authentication for them. We built a basic authentication, but we built a decent enough authentication system that midsized businesses can use.

Sramana Mitra: So you wanted to go higher up in the customer size?

Deepak Gupta: We didn’t want to go, but the market was pulling us. This authentication is a critical element for security.

Sramana Mitra: Did you face competition? This is not virgin territory.

Deepak Gupta: There wasn’t too much competition. We are mainly focusing on the consumer-facing authentication. A lot of companies in the market focus on the employee authentication. We were focusing on B2C. The companies who handle massive amounts of users need an authentication solution that can scale.

Sramana Mitra: What is the average deal size?

Deepak Gupta: In 2016 to 2017, deal size was very low – $5,000 to $10,000. Now we have customers who have 50 million end users. Their pricing is in the half million to a million range. We have a few Fortune 100 and Global 2000 customers.

Sramana Mitra: When did the business switch to that kind of ARR?

Deepak Gupta: Around 2018. Right after we developed the authentication, that’s where we started getting traction from the market.

Sramana Mitra: That was inbound?

Deepak Gupta: Mostly inbound. We had a lot of educational content.

Sramana Mitra: Where were you publishing the content? Was it on your own website?

Deepak Gupta: We were pushing it on our platform, but we were also publishing it on third-party forums.

Sramana Mitra: User groups.

Deepak Gupta: Yes, Quora, Stackoverflow, Reddit.

Sramana Mitra: What about financing? Did you raise more money?

Deepak Gupta: After we validated the authentication model in 2018, we did the Series A. That was around $17 million.

Sramana Mitra: What did you have by this time? What was your ARR and other metrics? Were you seeing large deal size businesses?

Deepak Gupta: Yes, we had a few large deal size companies. We had a big pipeline of customers. The product was still not fully built. We had an initial product and customers. That’s why we raised the money – to build the whole product suite.

Sramana Mitra: Prior to Series A, you were at what? $2 million ARR?

Deepak Gupta: Less than that.

Sramana Mitra: What happens next?

Deepak Gupta: We started building our full authentication and single sign on. We focused on privacy. During that time, GDPR came in. That helped us. US, Europe, and even some part of Asia started focusing on data regulation and privacy for the businesses. We started incorporating the privacy element into our product. The product was already serving the sign up and authentication.

We started building those regionalized data storage and components based on the customer requirements. We started building MFA [multi-factor authentication] for businesses so it would also help them secure accounts. We started building more products that could help similar businesses on cyber security.

This segment is part 4 in the series : From Developer to Cyber Security Entrepreneur with $10M Revenue and $18M Funding: LoginRadius CEO Deepak Gupta
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