About Verkada
Verkada was founded in 2016 by Filip Kaliszan, Hans Robertson, James Ren, and Benjamin Bercovitz, based on the observation that traditional physical security systems, including security cameras and building access control systems, had historically relied on on-premises hardware requiring dedicated local servers and IT infrastructure at each individual building or location, making it difficult and operationally cumbersome for organizations with multiple physical locations to manage their security systems consistently and gain unified visibility across their full portfolio of locations, since each site's security infrastructure was often managed largely independently using separate, disconnected on-premises systems.
Verkada's platform provides cloud-managed physical security hardware, including security cameras, access control systems, and various other building security and safety devices, that can be centrally managed and monitored through a single cloud-based software platform regardless of how many different physical locations an organization operates, letting security teams gain unified visibility and management capability across their entire multi-location security infrastructure rather than needing to separately access and manage security systems at each individual location independently. The company's cloud-based approach also eliminates the need for organizations to maintain dedicated on-premises servers and specialized IT infrastructure at each location specifically to support their security camera and access control systems, an approach that has appealed particularly to organizations with many geographically distributed locations, such as retail chains, schools, and multi-site healthcare and other organizations, where the operational and IT infrastructure burden of managing security systems separately at each individual site using traditional on-premises approaches would be substantially more resource-intensive. Verkada experienced a significant security incident in 2021 when hackers gained unauthorized access to a very large number of the company's customer camera feeds, an episode that drew substantial industry attention and scrutiny given the sensitivity of security camera footage and raised important questions about the security practices of cloud-based physical security providers specifically, though the company continued operating and growing following the incident. The company's customers span organizations across many industries with multiple physical locations. Verkada has raised very substantial venture funding from investors including Sequoia Capital, Felicis Ventures, and Meritech Capital, reaching a valuation exceeding $4.5 billion.
