k-ID has raised $45 million to make online games safer and offer privacy management for game developers, parents, kids, teens — and just all players.
The Singapore company is creating a cross-platform, instant sign-on solution for kids and teens built as
an all-in-one answer for solving the complex issue of privacy and online safety worldwide.
The funding is sizable in part because the company said it has unprecedented traction from major game publishers. The Series A round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with major support from Konvoy, Tirta, the world’s leading identity management platform Okta, and Z Venture Capital from the Japanese tech leader LY Corporation. This brings the total funding raised to date to $51 million — with three rounds raised in less than nine months.
In addition, k-ID was recently selected as a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer for 2024, joining the ranks of esteemed alumni, including Google and Airbnb in their early stages. Only 100 companies make the WEF Technology Pioneers cohort each year based on their potential to transform industries and society.
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Game publishers integrating k-ID represent games and online experiences played by hundreds of millions of kids and teens each day around the world, including popular experiences from some of the world’s largest public and private gaming companies.
“The time for change is now—today, the world demands safer, more empowered online experiences for youth,” said Kieran Donovan, CEO of k-ID, in a statement. “The groundswell of support from across the
industry has been phenomenal. We are excited to accelerate our mission to bring privacy-preserving, youth-first technology that delivers on the societal imperative of empowering the next generation.”
Donovan said his own childhood trauma was the motivation for k-ID.
“Kids today make friends and countless memories inside games and virtual worlds, and parents need modern tools to keep them safe,” said Jonathan Lai, General Partner at a16z. “k-ID is serving this need and defining a new industry standard for digital youth safety. We first invested in k-ID at the pre-seed through Speedrun, and we’re thrilled to continue supporting them as they make digital communities safer for kids and parents.”
Furthering its affiliation and support within the industry, k-ID also announced today a partnership with the ESRB Privacy Certified program. k-ID has configured its parent/family and developer portals to reflect the program’s COPPA-based requirements. This partnership offers game publishers a way to leverage k-ID technology to help obtain the ESRB Privacy Certified Kids Seal.
“It’s rare to find this combination of unique founder-market fit, societal impact, and—most impressively—commercial traction,” said Moritz Baier-Lentz, partner and head of gaming & interactive media at Lightspeed, who is joining the company’s board of directors, in a statement. “Clearly, k-ID is solving a massive challenge for publishers, parents, teens, and kids worldwide. Embarking on this partnership during my parental leave only made it more meaningful.”
Donovan, Timothy Ma, Julian Corbett and Jeff Wu founded the company with a mission centered on youth empowerment. The k-ID team hails from the likes of Meta, Tencent, Google, Take-Two, EA, with deep expertise in games, legal compliance and trust and safety. The company, which emerged from stealth in March 2024, is rapidly establishing itself as one of the most promising and fastest-growing start-ups in the world.
“There are over two billion people aged 18 and under, and their increasingly expansive digital identity needs to be secure,” said Austin Arensberg, senior director at Okta Ventures, in a statement. “Kids have unique authentication and authorization requirements, and k-ID has a robust and novel approach to ensuring safe online digital access to games and other digital assets. We are incredibly impressed by the team and excited for what lies ahead.”
“Publishers are navigating new challenges with growing their user base under the age of 18 and complicated global compliance standards. We believe k-ID’s innovative solutions will streamline the challenges posed by the ever-changing regulatory landscape and pave the way for a safer online environment for our kids and teens,” said Hyung Kim from Z Venture Capital, the corporate venture arm of LY corporation (a merged entity of LINE and Yahoo Japan), in a statement.
Pioneering new thinking around kids and online gaming, k-ID will attend the prestigious Summer Davos (the 15th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting ) in China and speak at the Games for Change Festival (the premier event for social impact gaming) in New York – both taking place at the end of June.