1Kosmos, which provides biometrics-based digital identity proofing and passwordless authentication through a blockchain, exits stealth and raises $15M Series A
Context & Ripple Effects
1Kosmos emerges from stealth into a passwordless-authentication funding wave already underway: Beyond Identity's $30M Series A landed in April 2020, followed by its $75M Series B that December, while Persona raised $17.5M for real-time identity verification earlier that year.
What distinguishes 1Kosmos is the stack — biometric identity proofing plus passwordless authentication anchored in a blockchain — rather than Beyond Identity's certificate-based approach. The category has since proven durable enough that 1Kosmos went on to raise a $57M Series B, validating the bet being made here.
First-order effects
- 1Kosmos enters direct competition with Beyond Identity for passwordless enterprise deployments, differentiating on blockchain-anchored biometrics versus certificates.
- The $15M funds 1Kosmos's move from stealth to selling, putting pressure on incumbents' onboarding and authentication pitches to converge into one product.
Second-order effects
- Beyond Identity and Persona face buyers who increasingly expect proofing and passwordless sign-in bundled together, forcing architectural counter-arguments rather than feature parity.
- Blockchain-based identity rivals like Humanity Protocol's palm-scan system signal that biometric modalities themselves become a competitive axis among vendors.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — repeated nine-figure cumulative raises across passwordless vendors — identity proofing and authentication consolidate into a single funded platform layer, displacing passwords as the default enterprise control.
- Regulatory and buyer scrutiny of biometric data storage would fall hardest on architectures like blockchains that make identity records persistent and portable, shaping which designs survive.
The trend: Passwordless identity is consolidating into a well-funded platform category where biometrics, cryptography, and distributed ledgers compete as the trust anchor.