Janrain

Janrain, sometimes styled as JanRain, is a customer profile and identity management (CIAM) software provider based in Portland, Oregon, United States. It was established in 2002. Akamai acquired Janrain in January 2019.

History

Janrain was founded in Portland in 2002 by Larry Drebes, who is the company's chief technology officer (CTO), and former chief executive officer (CEO). The firm's name "references a wet January in Portland", and has been described as a "leading provider of customer profile and identity management". According to ''Forbes'', Drebes recognized the value of social media in 2004 and predicted the need for users to manage their online identities. He helped create the OpenID protocol, which has been called a "decentralized authentication method for the new Web". Janrain was a founding member of the OpenID Foundation and has advocated for OpenID. As a privately held company, Janrain has grown steadily since its inception.

In December 2009, Janrain raised US$3.25 million from American venture capital firms DFJ Frontier, RPM Ventures, and Anthem Venture Partners. According to TechCrunch, the firms invested in Janrain's ability to "effectively mass market and sell authentication systems to website publishers based on OpenID and other online identity technologies". ''The Oregonian'' and VentureBeat have reported that Janrain had 60 employees by mid-2011. In August 2011, the company announced a $15.5 million funding round led by Emergence Capital Partners, which was used for hiring staff and marketing. Emergence founder Brian Jacobs joined Janrain's board of directors. That month, the company had funding totaling $18.7 million from the four venture capital firms, as well as from Timothy C. Draper, and Drebes. Janrain's sales "more than doubled" in 2012, and the company expected a quicker sales growth rate for 2013. Janrain had 170 employees by January 2013. That month, the firm received $33 million in new investment, marking one of the largest venture capital rounds for an Internet company in Oregon. Funding was led by Millennium Technology Value Partners, with additional participation by DFJ Frontier and RPM Ventures, existing investors Emergence Capital and Anthem Venture Partners, plus Epic Ventures, Salesforce.com, and Split Rock Partners. Including the 2013 investment, which was more than twice the amount of any venture investment in Oregon in 2012, Janrain had raised $52–53 million, and was noted as one of the "best-funded young technology" businesses in the state. The company reportedly planned to use the money to employ salespeople and engineers, enhance its technology, add new features to its software, and enter markets outside the U.S.

In February 2013, the Austin, Texas-based company Umbel announced its partnership with Janrain to combine the former company's "real-time audience insights" technology with the latter's "User Management Platform, providing actionable intelligence from rich social data, in real-time". In December 2014, Janrain acquired the startup company Arktan for an undisclosed amount. Janrain began offering data services developed by both companies, which had worked together for "several years" before the acquisition. According to ''Advertising Age'', Janrain had grown to 160 employees; Drebes said there would be no executive changes for Arktan's five employees. '' Inc.'' reported that Janrain earned $14.3 million in revenue in 2014, had a three-year growth rate of 294%, and employed 135 people—44 more than the previous year. In 2015, the firm expanded its international reach by building a new data center in China. In September 2015, ''Portland Business Journal'' said Janrain employed "around 120, most of them in Portland", and had raised $52.8 million to date from investors. In December 2015, the company secured an additional $27 million in their Series D funding, led by HighBar Partners.

The company's headquarters are in the Dekum Building at 519 Southwest Third Avenue in downtown Portland. Janrain moved into the building in 2009, occupying the sixth floor, which it vacated and moved into three others in February 2013.
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According to ''Portland Business Journal'', much of the office space's "funky" modern and Romanesque architecture existed previously,
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. though some updates were made when the company relocated.

. The space has an open design with glass walls for offices, a game room,

. a spiral staircase connecting the two floors, and an atrium extending up to an eighth floor skylight.

It also has quiet, private spaces for nursing mothers, telephone calls, or work rooms. Conference rooms on one floor are named after mountains in the Pacific Northwest, while those on another level are named for Portland's bridges.
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Janrain turned the basketball court on the building's fourth floor, left by the previous occupant Wieden+Kennedy,
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. into a conference room and meeting space.

. Janrain is open to remote work, which the ''Portland Business Journal'' said is unique in Portland.
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. The company has satellite offices in Frankfurt, London, and Paris.

In April 2016, Jim Kaskade joined Janrain as the new CEO. He was hired in turn by Conversica in late-2019.

Clients

In December 2009, TechCrunch reported that Janrain's technology was being used for the websites of EMI Music, Fox News, Kmart, Sears, and Universal Music Group. Dr Pepper Snapple Group began using Janrain's identity management services for its digital properties in 2011. Intel and MTV were also confirmed as clients in 2011. In January 2013, Avis, BBC
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