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Based in Los Altos, California, Descope is a developer-focused software company that provides a platform for building secure, passwordless authentication and user management systems. The enterprise software-as-a-service platform features a no-code workflow builder, application programming interfaces, and software development kits designed to protect applications against account takeover fraud and session theft. The venture-backed business has raised $88 million in total seed funding across multiple tranches to date, reaching an estimated valuation of approximately $500 million. Descope is financially backed by notable angel investors and technology industry executives, including CrowdStrike chief executive officer George Kurtz, Wiz co-founder Assaf Rappaport, and Microsoft lead director John Thompson. The company was founded in 2022 by a team of eight cybersecurity veterans, including Slavik Markovich, Rishi Bhargava, Guy Rinat, Dan Sarel, Aviad Lichtenstadt, Doron Sharon, Meir Wahnon, and Gilad Shriki.
Descope has raised $88.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Descope has raised $88.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
# Descope: High-Level Overview
Descope is a customer identity and access management (CIAM) platform that enables developers to build secure, passwordless authentication and user journey workflows for applications.[1][3] Founded in April 2022 and headquartered in Los Altos, California, the company serves developers, product teams, and businesses across industries including fintech, healthcare, and SaaS.[1][3]
The platform addresses a critical pain point: traditional identity and access management solutions require months of custom development and integration work. Descope solves this by offering a no-code, drag-and-drop workflow builder combined with SDKs and APIs that allow developers to deploy authentication flows in weeks rather than months.[6] The company supports over 300 million daily participant sessions and counts notable customers including GoFundMe, Databricks, GoodRx, Navan, and You.com.[1][3]
Descope's core value proposition centers on three pillars: speed to deployment, ease of use without sacrificing customization, and enterprise-grade security. The platform enables organizations to manage user onboarding, authentication, authorization, and ongoing engagement while protecting against account takeover attacks and fraud.[1][2]
# Origin Story
Descope was founded by eight security and software development experts with over 30 years of combined enterprise security experience.[1][7] The founding team—Slavik Markovich, Rishi Bhargava, Dan Sarel, Guy Rinat, Aviad Lichtenstadt, Doron Sharon, Meir Wahnon, and Gilad Shriki—previously built and scaled Demisto, a SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation and Response) platform that was acquired by Palo Alto Networks.[7] At Palo Alto Networks, the team grew product line revenues by hundreds of millions and took Cortex XSOAR from inception to hypergrowth.[7]
The founding team emerged from stealth in 2023 with $53 million already raised, positioning Descope to compete against established players like Auth0 and Ping Identity that had recently been acquired.[6] The timing was deliberate: the founders recognized that existing identity management solutions, despite their market dominance, remained slow to implement and required extensive custom coding—a friction point that modern development teams increasingly rejected.
# Core Differentiators
Descope's drag-and-drop interface allows non-technical and technical users alike to configure authentication flows, multi-factor authentication requirements, and user journeys without touching code.[4] This democratizes identity management across product, security, and engineering teams.
Customers report deploying Descope in weeks compared to months or years with competitors.[6] GoodRx migrated millions of patient accounts from Auth0 to Descope in a fraction of the typical timeline, while You.com launched enterprise-facing authentication in under three months.[6]
Beyond authentication, Descope integrates with 50+ third-party tools for just-in-time provisioning, data syncs, and identity federation, enabling a 360-degree view of the customer across multiple applications and identity providers.[4]
The platform emphasizes modern authentication methods—social logins, SAML SSO, one-time passwords (OTP), magic links, and biometrics—reducing reliance on passwords and associated security risks.[3][5]
Built-in account takeover (ATO) prevention uses native and third-party risk signals to detect suspicious activity and trigger step-up authentication.[4]
Recognizing the emerging need to secure AI agents and MCP servers, Descope has extended its platform to handle authentication, scope-based access control, consent, and token management for autonomous systems.[4]
# Role in the Broader Tech Landscape
Descope operates at the intersection of three powerful trends: the shift toward passwordless authentication, the rise of no-code/low-code development, and the explosion of AI agents requiring secure identity infrastructure.
The identity and access management market has historically been dominated by legacy vendors requiring extensive professional services and custom integration. Descope's emergence reflects a broader developer-led rebellion against friction—the same force that powered the success of Stripe, Twilio, and other developer-first platforms. By making identity management as accessible as dragging components onto a canvas, Descope is democratizing a capability that was previously gatekept by security specialists.
The timing is particularly acute as organizations accelerate digital transformation and face mounting pressure to launch new customer-facing products faster. Descope's ability to compress deployment timelines from months to weeks directly enables this acceleration while maintaining security standards.
Additionally, as enterprises increasingly deploy AI agents and autonomous systems, the need for granular, scope-based access control and secure token management has become urgent. Descope's pivot toward "Agentic IAM" positions it at the frontier of this emerging infrastructure layer.[4]
# Quick Take & Future Outlook
Descope has established itself as the modern alternative to legacy identity platforms by solving a real, acute problem: the gap between security requirements and developer velocity. The company's $35 million Series B funding (led by Notable and Lightspeed) signals strong investor confidence in this thesis.[6]
Looking ahead, Descope's trajectory will likely be shaped by three factors: market consolidation (as larger platforms attempt to replicate its no-code approach), AI agent proliferation (which will drive demand for its Agentic IAM capabilities), and developer adoption momentum (which compounds as more teams experience faster time-to-market).
The company's founding team's track record of building billion-dollar companies and their deep security expertise provide credibility in a market where trust is paramount. If Descope can maintain its speed advantage while scaling support and compliance capabilities to serve enterprise customers, it has the potential to become the default identity platform for modern application development—much as Stripe became the default for payments.
Descope has raised $88.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Descope's investors include Cyberstarts VC, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Oren Yunger, Notable Capital, Anshu Sharma, Assaf Rappaport, George Kurtz, Cerca Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, Triventures, Unusual Ventures, Accel.
Descope has raised $88.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $35.0M Seed in September 2025.
