PropelAuth Raises $2.59M to Address B2B Authentication Requirements

PropelAuth, which works with end-to-end authentication for B2B companies, has raised a seed investment of $2.59 million, a press release said.

The company will use the new money to invest in new product features, recruit more staff and add users and audiences with developer relations.

PropelAuth’s work is intended to help with self-service UIs, featuring organizations and groups as a notion, user administration and libraries, solving an issue where many authentication providers for B2C clients can’t address the authentication requirements for B2B businesses.

The company’s work already consists of providing things like adjustable roles, out-of-the-box support for customer organizations and integration with many major web frameworks.

Additionally, the company will make its growth plan free for early-stage startups, to raise $1 million in funding as part of its “Free till Funded” initiative. The idea is to alleviate the younger companies of worries about their authorization or various deadlines.

“After speaking with B2B founders, I realized startups today are spending way too much time building auth either from scratch or on top of a service that doesn’t support it,” reports Founder and CEO Andrew Israel.

The seed investment round saw participation from Tiger Global, 8-Bit Capital, Soma Capital and Y Combinator. In addition, PropelAuth also recently completed a W22 cohort at Y Combinator, the release said.

PYMNTS wrote that failing to authenticate identity in a B2B transaction is a way to open the door to fraud — but also, many good customers are declined in this way because of fears of fraud.

Read more: The Data Point: 54% of B2B Retailers Turning Away Legit Customers Due to Fraud Fears

In the PYMNTS study “The New B2B Authentication Standard: The Shift Toward Automated Digital Identity Verification,” which was done with TreviPay, it was found that 54% of retailers and 44% of both manufacturers and marketplaces had failed to accept some new customers because they were flagged as fraudulent.