Okta ventures into Bangalore, India, with new office and Global Innovation Center

Okta, a leading independent identity provider, announced the opening of a new office in Bangalore, India. Bangalore will also be the site of Okta's first innovation center in the Asia Pacific region. Okta gives a neutral, powerful and extensible platform that puts identity at the heart of your stack. No matter what the industry, use case, or level of support you need, Okta has got you covered.

Ben Goodman, SVP and GM for APJ, Okta, said that the company has 6,000+ employees, and over 18,000 customers. The global HQ is in San Francisco. It also has offices in Bangalore, Tokyo, Osaka, Singapore, Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt, Manila, Munich, Sydney, Seoul, Stockholm, Toronto, etc.

India is uniquely positioned for explosive growth in identity. The smartphone adoption rate is expected to reach 78% by 2025. Super apps are now defining our user expectations. APAC has seen digital banking reach new levels of maturity.

Okta will be creating hundreds of roles over the next three years. India will be a mirror of the Okta global HQ. We will enable businesses to enhance security, streamline identity processes, and accelerate digital transformation and initiatives. Okta has already made inroads in the country through its VC arm, Okta Ventures, which has invested in Bureau ID, an AI-powered identity-decisioning platform provider. Bureau ID customers, including Bajaj Finserv, IIFL, Rapido, Kreditbee, Mahindra Finance, SBM Bank, etc.

Okta is also working with Darwinbox, India's leading HBM platform, to deliver seamless and secure access to Darwinbox services through the Okta Integration Network (OIN).

Okta Identity Platform has the workforce identity platform, comprising employees, contractors, and business partners, and customer identity platform, comprising consumer apps and digital experiences, SaaS apps, etc. We are now boundaryless!

Okta Workforce Identity Cloud provides easy, secure access for your workforce so you can focus on other strategic priorities—like reducing costs, and doing more for your customers. With Okta Customer Identity Cloud, you can secure your consumer and SaaS apps, while creating optimized digital experiences.

How can you make Workforce Identity belong to you? Every worker and every device can work together to give their best. This brings in every technology in use. We can build an ecosystem around these. We believe in providing security to everyone. We can connect everything in a zero-trust world.

Sagnik Nandy, President and Chief Development Officer, Okta, talked about the Global Innovation Center in India. Bangalore will be the site of the first innovation center in Asia Pacific. It underscores Okta's commitment to driving innovation. We have an engineering, product, and design development center in India. India has a rich talent pool. The local expertise is immense that understands the Indian users and business needs. We need to treat India like a first-class entity. There are things that are unique to India, as well.

Nandy said: "The Global Innovation Center underscores Okta's commitment to driving innovation within the digital identity space, while reinforcing its position as a trusted partner for organizations embracing the future of secure and friction-less digital experiences. This facility will spearhead Okta's global research efforts in engineering, finance, and solutions engineering."

We are also scaling globally. Okta's structure, systems, and operations are positioned to support large product growth, innovation, and global talent pool. Okta presents unique learning and growth opportunities. You can learn about the SaaS ecosystem, and work on security-oriented identity products. You can learn secure cloud-native software development practices. There is exposure to full stack web development and native agents on all major OSs.

Nandy added that we are now building a solid foundation in 2023. We will scale the operations in 2024. The development team is distributed across London, Australia, USA, etc. We will take everything, and make that bigger in the future. The team in India will also have autonomy for projects from 2024 onwards. They can have the product area ownership, and be scalable in the future.