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ForgeRock IPO Details: 10 Things for IAM Security Partners, Investors to Know

Digital Identity and access management (DIM/IAM) security company ForgeRock has filed a Form S-1 with the SEC for a potential initial public offering (IPO).

Here are 10 (actually, 14) things for potential cybersecurity investors and channel partners to know, according to the SEC filing.

1. ForgeRock's Digital Identity Vision: "Our vision is a world where you never log in again. We help make the digital economy possible. ForgeRock supports billions of identities to help people simply and safely access the connected world—from shopping and banking to accessing company networks to get their work done. We make this possible through a unified and extensive identity platform to enable enterprises to provide exceptional digital user experiences without compromising security and privacy. This allows enterprises to deepen their relationships with customers and increase the productivity of their workforce and partners, while at the same time providing better security and regulatory compliance."

2. Customer Base: More than 1,300 organizations worldwide leverage ForgeRock's cloud-based software to collectively manage over three billion identities. Of those customers, 353 spend more than $100,000 annually with ForgeRock.

3. ForgeRock Revenues: $84.8 million for the first six months of 2021, up 53 percent from $55.4 million compared to the corresponding period in 2020.

4. ForgeRock Net Losses: The company experienced a net loss of $20.1 million for the first six months of 2021, which was smaller than a $35.9 million net loss for the corresponding period in 2020.

5. Annualized Recurring Revenue (ARR): ForgeRock ARR was $155 million as of June 2021, up from $119 million in June 2020.

6. Types of Identities Managed: The areas of expertise include:

  • Consumer -- to help businesses drive acquisition, loyalty and retention while reducing friction and fraud.
  • Workforce -- spanning employee, partner, and contingent worker access.
  •  IoT and Services -- to help enterprises secure non-human identities, including IoT, machine identities, bots, APIs, and microservices.

7. Types of Identity Services: The areas of expertise include identity management, access management, identity governance and autonomous identity.

8. Channel Partnerships: ForgeRock has relationships with such global systems integrators (GSI)s) as Accenture, Deloitte, and PwC. The company also partners with "leading regional consulting firms and implementation partners."

9. Channel Partner Revenues: Roughly 44 percent of new ARR (annualized recurring revenue) was sourced through leads from channel partners in 2020, compared to 31 percent in 2019 and 15 percent in 2018.

10. MSP and MSSP Partnerships: Managed Service Providers were briefly mentioned twice as a partner type in the SEC filing. No specific MSPs were mentioned by name. Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) were not mentioned as a partner type in the SEC filing.

11. ForgeRock Competitors, Rivals and Alternatives: The company mentioned competition from...

  • Legacy providers such as CA Technologies (now Broadcom), IBM and Oracle;
  • cloud-only providers such as Okta;
  • companies that provide only a subset of functionality across identity, access and governance such as CyberArk, Okta, Ping and SailPoint; and
  • homegrown solutions that are "designed to solve a limited identity use case and are difficult to secure, maintain and scale, and quickly become obsolete."
  • Microsoft and other companies that offer a broad array of IT solutions also compete in our market.

12. ForgeRock Stock Symbol: The company has  applied to list its Class A common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the trading symbol “FORG”.

13. Previous Funding: The company has raised more than $230 million since inception -- including $93.5 million in Series E funding in April 2020. Riverwood Capital led that round. Existing investors, including Accel, Meritech Capital, Foundation Capital and KKR Growth also participated.

14. ForgeRock Target Raise and Valuation: That information was not disclosed in the August 23 filing.

Stay tuned for potential updates to this blog if/when more IPO details emerge.

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.