Pi Corp and Credentica, 2 Zero-knowledge spin-off startups acquired

By Heri Mar 7th 2008 in Business, entrepreneurship

Zero-Knowledge Systems, which was launched in 1997, was a startup in Montréal doing privacy management services. It developed many business units and products, and also hired in a record time many prominent employees.

The company has since then changed its business to focus on managed services for broadband ISPs, and is now known as RadialPoint. However, Zero-Knowledge Systems has a legacy, as it actively encouraged technology entrepreneurship.

The most-known is of course Austin Hill, one of the intial founders. You see him everywhere, in the board of several technology startups and funds in Montreal and in Québec, in democamps, in barcamps, starting initiatives like the Founder&Funders dinner, and also founder and co-founder for 2 startups, Akoha and Standoutjobs.

Today, Austin Hill writes about startups founded by Zero-Knowledge System ex-employees, which were just acquired by 2 software behemoths.

The first is Credentica, acquired by Microsoft. Credentica manages online identies, allowing Internet users to reveal little to no information in online transactions. Wired has an extensive article about their main product, U-prove.

The second startup is PI Corp, acquired by EMC. PI Corp aims to provide a tool to manage personal identity&information. They don’t have any publicly avalaible product, but presents themselves as the experts for the domain.

Acquisition details were not disclosed for both of the deals. Credentica’s founder has more details about the acquisition at this blog. For Pi Corp, there is one exhaustive post about the deal by Chuck Hollis, an “EMC insider”.

As Austin Hill writes, this is great for the founders of both companies. Congratulations!

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Comments

Austin Hill March 07, 2008

Hey Heri,

Thanks for the post. One thing to make clear, these companies really earned their success on their own.

I think ZKS contributed to some learning & hopefully played a part in sharing the entrepreneurial bug – but in both cases they found financing; and success outside of ZKS.

I don’t want to take away from the great work they’ve done in making their own success (independent of their time at Zero-Knowledge).

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Montreal Tech Watch March 07, 2008

Pi Corp and Credentica, 2 Zero-knowledge spin-off startups acquired http://tinyurl.com/2cegkn

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Heri March 09, 2008

Austin,

thanks for the details. I’ve changed the last part of the post, the title should be changed to be more accurate too — although there is a clear connection between ZKS, credentica and Pi Corp.

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