Investment in Auth0, Inc.

NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Inc. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan; President & CEO, Toshiki Nakayama), has invested in Auth0, Inc. (headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, US; CEO, Jon Gelsey), a US-based start-up company that provides an enterprise user authentication platform.

Background
As eCommerce and web services markets evolve and expand, managing user authentication becomes critical.  The proliferation of digital content and consumer products increases demand for streamlined payment and authentication solutions. Current authentication solutions, such as social login1 and single sign-on login2, are integrated into existing and new services. Also, the need for more robust security with two-factor authentication3, anomaly detection, IP address restriction, to prevent fraudulent usage is increasing.

Auth0 provides an identification platform that supports various modern authentication and security solutions and allows easy integration of these solutions into services with minimal effort. Because their API and developer interface is easy to use and highly rated by developer communities and enterprise customers, Auth0’s identity platform is expected to further expand and spread in the future all over the world.

NTT DOCOMO Group offers user authentication solutions based on their customer base and carrier payment platform, and it considers the investment in Auth0 to create synergy with Auth0’s platform.

1: Social login
Using existing login information from a social network provider, the user can sign into a third party website instead of creating a new account specifically for that website.

2: Single sign-on
The authentication process occurs a user logs in to one Client and is then signed in to other Clients automatically, regardless of the platform, technology, or domain the user is using.

3: Two-factor authentication
The technical term for the process of requiring a user to verify their identity in two unique ways before they are granted access to the system