Okta acquires Permiso as it shores up AI security offerings
Company reported nearly 11% increase in Q2 revenue
Identity and access management company Okta has closed on its acquisition of Permiso Security.
San Francisco-based Okta provides cloud-based software that helps businesses manage and secure user access to applications while enabling developers to embed identity controls into applications, websites, web services and devices.
Okta works with a number of large FIs, including Bank of America, Citi and JPMorgan Chase.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Permiso offers a cloud-native identity security platform that detects and mitigates threats across human, nonhuman and agentic identities in multi-cloud environments.
The deal, announced July 30, closed Aug. 26 at about $200 million, according to multiple media outlets. Neither company publicly disclosed the cost.
The acquisition “strengthens Okta’s AI security offerings with enhanced visibility into autonomous agent behaviors and additional runtime controls to ensure secure agentic activity in real time,” Todd McKinnon, chief executive, chairperson and co-founder, said on Okta’s fiscal 2027 second-quarter earnings call after market close on Aug. 26.
“It’s a much richer and deeper set of correlative processes and machine learning that can really look at a session deeply across many vectors and many variables and detect risk.”
Preparing for the agentic future
Okta has also enhanced its offerings internally, launching Okta for AI Agents in March to select customers for early access and making it generally available on April 30.
The new platform helps customers discover and register AI agents, standardize agent access and revoke agent access to limit rogue behavior, according to a March 16 release. Essentially, the platform asks three questions of every agent:
- Where is the agent?
- What can it connect to?
- What can it do?
“Eighty-one percent of the CISOs that we talk to are aware right now that they are exposed with agents deployed in their enterprises where they do not yet have an adequate security platform in place,” Eric Kelleher, president and chief operating officer at Okta, said on the earnings call. “A very high percentage of our customers know that they have the need.”
The growing use of AI and specifically AI agents by businesses and bad actors necessitates enhanced safeguards, McKinnon said.
“Organizations are accelerating their infrastructure modernization timelines to address this heightened threat environment, and we’re seeing conversations that begin with securing AI broaden into identity modernization initiatives,” he said.
By the numbers
Q2 saw more bookings than any previous Q1, Q2 or Q3, Chief Financial Officer Brett Tighe said on the call.
“Q2 was a record bookings quarter for a non-Q4, driven by strong pipeline conversion and deal expansions,” Tighe said. “Strength with large enterprise customers was punctuated by over 20% growth in $1 million-plus ACV [annual contract value] customers. We now have over 600 customers with greater than $1 million in ACV.”
Okta also reported in Q2:
- Revenue of $805 million, up 10.6% year over year;
- Net income of $116 million, up 73.1% YoY; and
- Operating expenses of $534 million, up 2.9% YoY.
Shares of Okta (NASDAQ: OKTA) were up 28.63% from market open to $172.91 as of market close today. The company has a market capitalization of $30.1 billion.
Register here for the FinAi Lending Summit, set for Oct. 7-8 in Las Vegas. This inaugural event will include speakers from Fifth Third and Capital One, as well as a fireside chat with Piermont Bank founder and Chief Executive Wendy Cai-Lee.
