1Password Acquires Trelica to Expand Beyond Secure Password Storage

1Password’s acquisition of software-as-a-service (SaaS) access management provider Trelica is the latest move in a race to broaden the scope and functionality of password managers beyond securely storing user credentials.

1Password and its competitors, including Bitwarden, Dashlane, and LastPass, have been piling on features in recent months, such as extended autofill capabilities; support for digital attachments, such as birth certificates; and the ability to use the System of Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM) standard to automatically provision users and groups from a source directory.

The 1Password-Trelica Deal

The 1Password-Trelica deal announced last week fits with 1Password’s plans to help enterprises manage SaaS and shadow IT in their environment. Addressing these two enterprise challenges is a natural progression of what 1Password has already been providing.

Industry Trends and Outlook

According to a recent Bloomberg report, 1Password has been interviewing banks for a potential IPO. While Faugno was in New York at the Nasdaq exchange to announce the Telica acquisition, he dismisses that as a sign of immediate plans to go public. "You know how these public exchanges woo you years before to get closer to the company," he says. "We’re in no rush. We have a profile that is appealing to public market investors, but we’re also very fortunate to have been a very profitable business for two decades, so we have no unnatural pressures to become public. When the timing is right, we’ll do it."

The Future of Password Managers

Odds are some of these vendors will be acquired or simply not keep up with investment [in GenAI] over the next three years," Bretzmann says. "Most of the leaders are focusing on the sprawl problem they currently solve for enterprise environments with too many point solutions. Password managers will still be relevant in the midmarket where identity problems are less complex."