Taking the pain out of user permissions, London-based Cerbos raises $3.6 million in seed round

London-based Cerbos has raised $3.6 million in a seed funding round. The open-source startup helps scale-ups better manage just who has access to what and when, i.e. user permissions, across the board.

As software companies begin the arduous task of scaling up, an oft experienced stumbling block is user permissions. A seemingly simple process to manage unless you’ve sat in the chief information officer, security officer, developers, engineers, product managers, and/or compliance officers seat, take note: it’s not as easy as it looks.

High-growth tech companies, software agencies, and large enterprises often have to support multiple users in multiple roles, a factor that’s only increased since the beginning of the pandemic, and if Omicron has anything to say about it, will only continue its trend. In order for companies to remain 100% compliant, i.e. covering all the potential legal bases, these multiple users in multiple roles need different permissions at different stages and different positions.

Enter Cerbos. Founded earlier this year by Emre Baran (ex-Googler, serial entrepreneur, and co-founder of Yonja and Qubit) and Charith Ellawala (a seasoned software engineer who spent many years at Ocado, Elastic and Qubit.), the solution aims to become the de facto method for said companies.

“For too long, engineers have been reinventing the wheel. Every time a team invests in a new piece of software, engineers have to reinvent the user permissions from scratch,” commented Baran. “This is particularly true in large enterprises, where different departments or teams need to use the same software platform for distinctly different functions. It is a time-consuming and cost-inefficient way of working. We’re enabling companies to be more compliant and making higher-quality security available to every developer. We make it zero hassle to get up and running.”

Cerbos’ seed round was led by Crane with support from Earlybird Digital East, Seedcamp, 8-Bit Capital, Connect Ventures, OSS Capital, Acequia Capital, HelloWorld, Tiny. Angel investors include Guillaume Pousaz, Paul Forster, Mike Stoppelman, Jeff Trudeau, Chris Barchak, and Pete Koomen.

“It is well understood that user permission requirements get more complex as enterprise clients get bigger, and serve users in different roles, with a complex number of permission exceptions. To save companies from building this from scratch, Cerbos’ open-source approach radically simplifies user and role permissions by abstracting away the complexity,” commented Crane Venture Partners’ Scott Sage.