A Group Of High-Profile Investors Is Making A $3 Million Bet On A Startup That's Trying To Kill Passwords

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Are your passwords secure enough?

If there's anything good that came out of last week's iCloud leak, it's that more people are aware of two-factor authentication now.

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Authy, a one-stop app for all of your two-factor authentication PINs, is one of the newcomers to this space.

In just two years, Authy has added about a million users and some big enterprise clients like Twitch, Coinbase, and Cloudflare. Over 4,000 applications are integrated with Authy's platform, including Gmail, Facebook, and Dropbox.

On Monday, Authy announced a new series A funding worth $3 million. It has a pretty impressive list of high-profile investors, including Box CEO Aaron Levie, Salesforce.com, Winklevoss Capital, and Y-Combinator.

"Passwords by itself are weak. They're not sufficiently secured for the things we do today," Marc Boroditsky, president of Authy, told Business Insider. "With Authy, you'll have a single way to authenticate yourself to all the different apps that you're using."

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The way Authy works is pretty straightforward. Once you set it up to work with your individual accounts, like Facebook or Dropbox, you can easily look up your two-factor PINs when you log in on the Authy app, without having to wait for a text message or open a new app to receive it.

The PINs are automatically deleted after 20 seconds, and gets regenerated every time you log in. Coinbase, for example, requires a new authentication PIN for every new transaction, so Authy's quick access to your PIN makes the whole process a lot easier.

There are several competitors in this space, including Google Authenticator and Duo Security. But Boroditsky claims Authy is a better option because of its cross-device nature and simple integration process. Coinbase, in fact, states on its website that Authy "provides the best level of security."