This week two European software as a service consumer identity and access management (CIAM) vendors merged to what is claimed to be Europe’s largest CIAM supplier.
iWelcome and Onegini become one, with the aptly titled new organisation called OneWelcome. Both have been long time suppliers of CIAM capabilities to primarily the European market.
iWelcome Key Facts
| Founded | 2011 |
| Funding | Series C was last round in Nov 2017 |
| Locations | Netherlands, Romania |
| Employees | ~50 |
| Offerings | Consumer IAM; Business-2-Business IAM; Business-2-Employee IAM; Consent Management; eIDAS |
In their own words:
“Founded in 2011, iWelcome is Europe’s leader in Consumer and B2C IAM solutions, designed with the complexity and security concerns of large organisations in mind. Our European roots guarantee a fully GDPR-compliant platform built with top-class private cloud technology.
Millions of consumers and hundreds of thousands of employees – across industries like Financial Services, Energy & Mobility, Media & Publishing, Retail and other industries – rely on iWelcome on a daily basis. Analysts like Gartner and KuppingerCole have recognised iWelcome as a worldwide Product and Innovation Leader with “Excellence” ratings.”
https://www.iwelcome.com/about-us
Being a European organisation, their cloud service provides strong support the latest GDPR requirements that many CIAM deployments are demanding. As well as the standard functional support that many CIAM projects need (think API first, data separation, consent management and modern authentication) iWelcome also provides a strong set of capabilities in the metrics space. CIAM is subtly different from B2E or employee IAM, where metrics, measurements and deep analytics help to not only build further business cases for expansion, but also help understand customer journeys and requirements.
Case studies are predominantly European focused as you’d expect, but with some notable titles. The European Central Bank leveraged iWelcome for an implementation of 10,000 users across seven applications. Clearly security was a key requirement and the use of a mobile SDK helped here. One other notable brand to use the iWelcome platform, was Admiral Insurance based out of the UK. This CIAM project was focused (like many often are) on collapsing the numerous outward facing brands organisations sometimes have – which introduces redundant user journeys and theming issues. A standards based approach (leveraging OIDC) and strict privacy compliance were table stakes.
Onegini Key Facts
| Founded | 2011 |
| Funding | Series B was last round in Sept 2019 (total funding $7m) |
| Locations | Belgium, Germany, Poland |
| Employees | ~60 |
| Offerings | Consumer IAM; Regulated Industries; MFA; Identity Proofing |
In their own words:
“Onegini was founded in 2011 and supports today over 200 customer labels with over 45 million users spread over multiple countries. The customer base includes among others AEGON, NIBC, CZ, TKP, Baloise, Menzis, NS, Van Lanschot and VGZ. With Onegini Identity Cloud, the company offers an omnichannel Customer Identity and Access Management solution (CIAM) for the banking, insurance and pension industry. With Onegini, organisations quickly and securely create mobile apps and digital portals for consumers, employers and advisors while not having to worry about registration, identification, login and management of the digital identity. As of May 2020, Onegini has been recognised by Gartner as a CIAM specialist.”
https://www.onegini.com/about/team
Onegini provides a single tenant SaaS solution for many of the traditional CIAM use cases. One area that seems to stand out regarding the different with iWelcome, is what looks to be greater support for identity proofing and know your customer (KYC) use cases as well as possibly broader mobile support. Proofing and assured on-boarding is becoming a huge issue for CIAM projects – not only from a fraud reduction perspective, but also the ability to provide entirely remote registration. Onegini partner with several leading proofing providers such as Mitek. From the mobile SDK perspective, they provide some interesting device intelligence capturing features such as jailbreak detection, which is now becoming table stakes for end point assurance.
Case studies are again mainly all from the European region. Whilst perhaps not all household names, the one area that stands out, is that many of the main referenced case studies are all leveraging the Onegini mobile capabilities. Insurance provider VGZ required an app for 4 million insurance customers for example. The Dutch national rail service NS had a slightly different requirement – the migration of several disparate digital platforms into a more streamlined operation. Onegini performed a migration of over 700,000 users to a new CIAM project.
A Warm Welcome to…OneWelcome
So the new entity becomes OneWelcome. There are certainly areas of feature overlap. The press release amplifies the differences however: “We share an identity vision that is centered around connecting and protecting people, businesses, things and IT. Combining Onegini’s state-of-the-art mobile authentication platform and core identity capabilities with iWelcome’s leading consent management and B2B delegation management functionality creates the richest platform in the market. We anchor into our product our in-depth understanding of the European identity challenges, like GDPR, eID’s and Bring-your-own-identity. Therefor OneWelcome is the most compelling CIAM & B2B offering available today for European enterprises.”.
OneWelcome will have a combined workforce of over 110 employees according to LinkedIn. As a private acquisition revenues are unknown. Other leading CIAM provider ForgeRock was founded in Europe, and whilst their headquarters are located in San Francisco, LinkedIn suggests a European workforce of over 300. The market for CIAM is growing in Europe and across North America as many organisations embrace digital transformation as a means of strategic choice. It seems the CIAM European wars are hotting up too.
For further information on Consumer Identity & Access Managements see the following events coming up soon:
CISO Briefing: Consumer Identity & Access Management Market & Technology Overview, September 21st, 2021, 11am BST – A 90 minute overview covering the main functional requirements, market trends and vendor introductions. Tickets available on Eventbrite starting at £79.
Consumer Identity & Access Online Training – 11 hours of recorded content, quizzes and study book, focused on designing consumer, customer and citizen facing digital identity platforms. Aimed at CISO, CIO and identity and security leaders. Enrol at Teachable for £249 per person.
Consumer Identity and Access Management Design Fundamentals is available on Amazon now in paperback and digital.
Simon Moffatt is Founder & Analyst at The Cyber Hut. He is a published author with over 20 years experience within the cyber and identity and access management sectors. His most recent book, “Consumer Identity & Access Management: Design Fundamentals”, is available on Amazon. He is a CISSP, CCSP, CEH and CISA. He is also a part-time postgraduate on the GCHQ certified MSc. Information Security at Royal Holloway University, UK. His 2021 research diary focuses upon “How To Kill The Password”, “Next Generation Authorization Technology” and “How IAM Countermeasures Can Defend Against Cyberwar”. For further information see here.