CRM giant Salesforce Acquires Mobile Authentication Startup Toopher

CRMgiant Salesorce has acquired Toopher, a developer of a mobile two-factor authentication app that uses location-awareness. Salesforce Wednesday added mobile-based two-factor authentication to its identity and access technologies with the acquisition of Texas-based startup Toopher. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Toopher, which immediately stopped selling its products after the announcement, makes two-factor authentication app that checks a user's location(among other factors), before allowing him/her to log-in or perform any security actions on their mobile device. Its customers include LastPass, MailChimp, and the University of Oklahoma. 

Founded in 2011 by University of Texas PhD student Evan Grim, who became CTO, and Josh Alexander, who served as CEO. The Texas-based startup was funded by Alsop Louie Partners. 

Salesforce is aligning itself with some of the tech major IT vendors: Microsoft, PingIdentity and RSA, which have over the past few years moved to acquire MFA vendors in order to enhance their security capabilities. The company said it will continue to support existing customers. 

Mark Diodati, research vice president at US-based research firm Gartner: "Saleforce's acquisition of Toopher's modern authentication capabilities makes sense when considering the fast-growing Identity Management as a Service (IDaaS) market", and also added that: "These capabilities are considered 'table stakes', so having them will enhance Salesforce's competitive capabilities."

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