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Centrify

Fintech · Redwood City, United States · Founded 2004

Centrify Corporation was a cybersecurity firm established in 2004 by Tom Kemp, Adam Au, and Paul Moore. The company was founded with the idea of leveraging existing Microsoft Active Directory infrastructure to manage identities and secure access across non-Microsoft systems, applications, and cloud environments. Tom Kemp, who served as the CEO, brought his experience from previous successful startups, including NetIQ, which he co-founded. This background in systems management and entrepreneurship was instrumental in shaping Centrify's direction. The company specialized in Privileged Access Management (PAM) and Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS), providing solutions that addressed the significant security risk of compromised credentials. Centrify's business model targeted organizations of all sizes, though its primary clients were large enterprises and federal agencies, including over half of the Fortune 100. It generated revenue through software and cloud-based subscriptions for its unified identity management platform. This platform offered a suite of services, including single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), privileged identity management, and session monitoring for compliance. A key feature was its ability to centralize fragmented identities, providing a single login for users across on-premises, cloud, and mobile environments, thereby reducing IT complexity and costs. Over the years, Centrify achieved significant milestones, including raising over $94 million in funding from venture capital firms like Accel, Mayfield, and Index Ventures. In 2018, the private equity firm Thoma Bravo acquired a majority stake in the company. This was followed by another acquisition in January 2021 by TPG Capital. A pivotal moment in Centrify's history occurred in April 2021, when TPG merged the company with another PAM leader, Thycotic. The combined entity temporarily operated as ThycoticCentrify before being rebranded as Delinea in February 2022. The merger aimed to create a more comprehensive identity security provider with an extensive suite of cloud-ready PAM solutions to meet the needs of modern, hybrid enterprises. Keywords: Privileged Access Management, PAM, Identity and Access Management, IAM, IDaaS, cybersecurity, Zero Trust, single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, enterprise security, cloud security, identity security, Thycotic, Delinea, access control, compliance, identity management, Thoma Bravo, TPG Capital, Tom Kemp, Adam Au, Paul Moore