US$620M

That’s Canada’s new record for largest fundraising round ever. It was set today by 1Password, which announced a Series C funding round that values the Toronto-based company at US$6.8 billion. The password manager’s megadeal eclipsed the previous record, Wealthsimple’s $750-million round (about US$600 million) last year.

Here’s what else you need to know about the deal:

Who’s in: Iconiq Capital, an investment firm that manages money for high-net-worth individuals like Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and Jack Dorsey, led the round. Tiger Global, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Accel and Backbone Angels also invested, along with a handful of celebrities: Ryan Reynolds, Scarlett Johansson, Pharrell Williams and others.

What’s next: 1Password says it’s been “consistently profitable,” but needs additional funding to ramp up its product expansion and “explore beyond the boundaries of traditional password management.” In its announcement, 1Password included a teaser for what that might look like: a universal sign-in feature that allows people to log into any website using the same credentials. The company also alluded to an even broader set of uses for its software, including for insurance and crypto wallets. 

From CEO Jeff Shiner: “1Password can be an essential tool when it comes to estate planning, shopping and banking,” Shiner told The Logic in an email. “Our product vision is to bring human-centric security to everyone across every aspect of their lives.”

Pandemic boost: Shiner said more people have used 1Password to help them protect data since the start of the pandemic, as a growing number of cloud-based apps and services increases users’ vulnerability to security breaches. According to a report last year from IBM Security, the average cost of a data breach for Canadian businesses reached $6.75 million per incident, up from $6.35 million the year before, and the highest level IBM has recorded since it started collecting data seven years prior.

The numbers: Now one of Canada’s most valuable private tech companies, 1Password launched in 2005 as a bootstrapped business. It didn’t raise its first round of external funding until 2019, which was followed by another round last summer that valued it at US$2 billion.  1Password’s annual recurring revenue has grown to roughly US$200 million, up about 70 per cent since July, according to Shiner. It now has more than 100,000 businesses signed up as customers, he said.