McLean identity management startup ID.me has announced a massive expansion, with plans to hire more than 1,000 employees in Northern Virginia by the end of 2021.
The company said this week it has already hired 300 new employees since the start of 2020, causing its total headcount to balloon to 350 now. It's also opened up two new locations in Tysons, though only its essential workers are reporting to its physical offices.
Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the company said it has “experienced explosive growth,” as consumers have shifted many of their shopping, health care and banking needs online, requiring better ways to verify a person's identity across the internet.
“We aim to fix the identity layer of the internet with a trusted and portable login that customers can use to access everything from government benefits to e-commerce sites. Like Special Forces, we are executing against the most difficult missions where others have failed,” said Blake Hall, CEO and Founder of ID.me, in a statement Tuesday.
Hall said ID.me is continuing to seek engineering, customer support, and sales and marketing staff. The additions follow some big federal contract wins, according to a source familiar with the company, who indicated the potential dollar value of the contract awards numbers in the hundreds of millions of dollars, fueling much of this planned growth.
ID.me declined to comment on any potential contracts. While USAspending.gov did not record any nine-figure contract awards as of now for ID.me, the company has certainly seen a steady flow of contracts from the Veterans Affairs and Treasury departments in recent years, per that database. On Sept. 11, Veterans Affairs obligated $17.2 million to purchase ID.me's annual licenses and maintenance from small business contractor V3Gate, LLC, with a potential award amount of $61.5 million. The Treasury Department ordered $315,000 in ID.me software and software maintenance with a potential total award of $32 million.
The company, founded in 2020, last raised $8.33 million in June, at a $483.33 million valuation, according to data from venture data firm PitchBook. The company has raised $41.33 million to date, per PitchBook.
