Investing in AuthMind

Over the past several decades, we have seen cybersecurity startups take rise as they secure key infrastructure that becomes increasingly ubiquitous across the enterprise. For example, Palo Alto Networks began as network protection for Cisco infrastructure and Wiz came about as a means to secure cloud infrastructure like AWS and Google Cloud. Over the past few decades, identity security has been built around Identity Access Management (IAM), Identity Governance and Administration (IGA), and Privileged Access Management (PAM).

As healthcare has moved to a more digital native industry, there is key infrastructure needed to secure sensitive personal data, prevent fraud, and maintain regulatory compliance. Identity security connects the policies and practices to the individuals accessing these systems, networks, or data. This goes beyond HIPAA compliance. The security and resilience of our healthcare system directly affects patient safety, trust, and continuity of care.

Real world examples illustrate the impact of identity-based attacks on the healthcare system and healthcare delivery. In 2015, Anthem fell victim to a phishing email that required employees to provide login credentials. This led to one of the largest data breaches in history, with an estimated 80M people impacted. The compromised information included medical IDs, social security numbers, and income data. As a result, there was a $115M settlement and a $16M settlement with HHS, the largest HIPAA settlement in history. For other healthcare organizations, breaches can mean hospital closures, delays in patient care, and prescription backlogs. The healthcare industry is a lucrative and devastating target, highlighting the pressing need for stronger measures.

We are thrilled to announce our investment in AuthMind’s Seed financing round.

AuthMind is pioneering observability-driven identity protection with a holistic platform that arms identity and cybersecurity teams with end-to-end, real-time identity security posture management and threat detection. Through unmatched visibility into the activities of identities—human, non-human, and agentic AI—spanning multi-cloud, hybrid, SaaS, and on-premises environments, the AuthMind Identity Protection Platform is the only solution that provides full identity and access context for fast remediation of identity threats and posture issues. Named a Gartner Cool Vendor in Identity-First Security, AuthMind is based in Bethesda, Maryland, with R&D operations in Pune, India.

As experts in identity security, Shlomi Yanai and Ankur Panchbudhe have developed this platform to enable organizations to prevent and respond to identity-based attacks that complements existing policy-centric tools. We are ready to get to work to push the frontier alongside AuthMind as they work to secure the new enterprise edge, because hackers don’t hack in, they log in. See here for the official press release from AuthMind announcing their $19.3M in Seed funding.

Black Opal Ventures continues to invest in companies leveraging frontier technologies to improve healthcare and life sciences.

This article was authored by Eileen Tanghal and Hanna Edgren.