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Today, Venafi, the inventor and leading provider of machine identity management, announced that the Machine Identity Management Development Fund added 16 new developer projects in 2020. This essentially doubles the size of the development fund. This amazing growth has been fueled by new global technology leaders who have joined the fund, including Akeyless, Anjuna Security, n8n, OpenFaaS, Pulumi, Sidechain Security and ServiceRocket and others.
The Machine Identity Management Development Fund couldn’t be more important for Venafi’s cloud-native future, and our industry awareness and recognition is attracting developers from around the world to join the Venafi Ecosystem. The Fund is creating a global community to future-proof Venafi customer success. And, as a result, many of the developers are generating significant new revenue streams for their organizations. One especially innovative event occurred when Jetstack, a two-time Fund participant, was acquired by Venafi in May 2020. And this is just the beginning. In 2021, Venafi is ready to modernize machine identity mangement in entirely new ways to grow the Venafi Ecosystem and create more success for developers and customers alike.
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What is the Machine Identity Management Development Fund?
The Fund is a global initiative designed by Venafi to increase the visibility, intelligence and automation required for Machine Identity Management across enterprise networks. Key milestones of the Machine Identity Management Development Fund in 2020 include:
- The Fund more than doubled in number of developer projects in 2020. The Fund now includes more than 30 developer projects.
- Three developers received a second round of funding. Developers have realized the value of the Machine Identity Development Fund in supporting Venafi customers. They have dedicated resources to integrations that accelerate the delivery of comprehensive machine identity management across microservices, DevOps and multi-cloud environments.
- The more-focused Indie Development Fund was launched. The program pays individual developers for innovative, open source machine identity projects. By participating in the program, individual developers receive direct sponsorship from Venafi to work on projects they’re passionate about to help open source and cloud-native community.
- Venafi acquired Jetstack, an early Development Fund participant. Jetstack, a global leader in open source machine identity management software for Kubernetes and cloud-native ecosystems, joined the Fund in 2018. The subsequent acquisition, conducted in May 2020, is reshaping the way modern applications that enable digital transformation are secured.
- New revenue opportunities for developers. Through the Fund, developers can make their products available to license through Venafi. This is a growing opportunity for startups, global technology leaders and individual innovators.
What are developers saying about their work in the Development Fund?
CEO of Jetstack, Matt Barker says, "When Venafi approached us about the possibility of sponsoring cert-manager with the to-be-launched Development Fund, I thought it was too good to be true. As I explored it further, it turned out to be better than we could have imagined, and the sponsorship and support we received on joining played a big part in the project's success. More importantly, the relationship helped us develop customers and commercial strategy, which ultimately culminated in us joining the Venafi business in May 2020. For anyone developing products in and around the machine identity management space, especially in the cloud native, developer centered world, I would highly recommend getting in touch with Venafi to find out how you could play a part." Jetstack are based in the UK.
Bruno Couillard, president & CEO at Crypto4A asserts, “From first moment that we were introduced to Venafi, from participating in the Machine Identity Management Development Fund to today, we continue to have an amazing journey. Being part of the development fund has allowed Crypto4A to focus and align ourselves to solving problems by focusing on the outcomes that customers care about most. It is amazing to be part of the journey with Venafi in getting machine identities recognized as an important category that requires attention. With the upcoming challenges we face due to quantum computing, there is also a great opportunity to solidify our security foundations as an industry—and we can’t think of a better company than Venafi to work with in helping our customers navigate these challenges.” Crypto4A are based in Canada.
Jeffry Jacob, cyber risk management advisor at Difenda declares, “As a result of the progress and success over the last 18 months, what started out as a project has now become a dedicated business unit. Venafi not only provided us the initial financial support through the Development Fund, they have also provided technical recommendations, support and insights into customer expectations to help us build the right product. With their deep knowledge and understanding of their customer base, Venafi has been instrumental in identifying opportunities and driving sales for Difenda’s app. Venafi continues to work closely with us in product development, marketing, sales and customer satisfaction, thereby providing assurance over the long-term potential and sustainability of our integration product.” Difenda are based in Canada.
Sven Feuchtmüller, managing director at filancore UG appraises, “New ideas for software innovation grow out of the minds of tech entrepreneurs. Venafi helps young startups put those ideas into reality. Venafi’s Development Fund works in collaboration with innovators and other experienced individuals to support customer needs.” filancore are based in Germany.
Gerrit Tamboer, managing director at Fullstaq observes, "Open source software is the foundation of the company we build. Not only is it our default choice when delivering solutions to our customers, but we also love contributing to open source projects on a regular basis. We are very grateful for being a part of the Development Fund and using our knowledge of the open source ecosystem on a much wider scale.” Fullstaq are based in The Netherlands.
Alex Ellis, founder of OpenFaaS Ltd and CNCF ambassador states, “Open source is a distribution model, rather than a business model, which makes sourcing funding and sustainability particularly challenging. This is even more of a problem for independent projects and companies that are not externally funded. Venafi's Development Fund is a practical way to help cloud-native teams build out enterprise features and reach Global 5000 companies." OpenFaaS is based in the United Kingdom.
Peter John Marquez, general manager at ServiceRocket comments, “You can’t just open a marketplace and declare that you have an ecosystem. Launching a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is not a simple matter. For the past 10+ years, ServiceRocket has helped software companies, like Atlassian and Salesforce, establish and grow world-class ecosystems. We know successful PaaS ecosystems require strategic planning and investment. That is why it has been such a pleasure to work with Venafi and their Development Fund. This team understands how critical it is to create an environment where their products, customers and partners can thrive.” ServiceRocket is based in Palo Alto, California.
Do you have what it takes to be the next funded Machine Identity Management Developer?
The Machine Identity Management Development Fund encourages recipients to build integrations that deliver greater visibility, intelligence and automation across any technology that creates or consumes machine identities, including:
- Cloud and hybrid cloud infrastructure
- Kubernetes
- Service Mesh
- DevOps
- Containerization
- Secure Shell (SSH)
- Code signing
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
- Artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data analytics
- IoT
- Blockchain-distributed ledger technology
Find out more about the Venafi Machine Identity Management Development Fund and how you can become a funded developer.
This blog features solutions from the ever-growing Venafi Ecosystem, where industry leaders are building and collaborating to protect more machine identities across organizations like yours. Learn more about how the Venafi Technology Network is evolving above and beyond just technical integrations.
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