AuthZed
AuthZed provides scalable, Zanzibar-inspired authorization infrastructure for enterprise applications and AI workloads via its open-source SpiceDB database, multi-tenant Cloud, and single-tenant Dedicated deployments, serving customers like OpenAI, Turo, and Workday.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2021
- HeadquartersNew York, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What AuthZed does
AuthZed is a New York-based, venture-backed authorization infrastructure provider founded in 2021 that builds and commercializes SpiceDB, an open-source permissions database implementing Google's Zanzibar model for relationship-based access control (ReBAC). SpiceDB offers a schema language for defining permissions, strong consistency guarantees, support for billions of relationships, and features such as expiring relationships, composable schemas, a query planner, and fine-grained API access management. The product portfolio spans four layers: the open-source SpiceDB core (with clients in Python, Go, Node.js, Java, Ruby, and .NET), AuthZed Cloud (multi-tenant managed service on CockroachDB with $700 starter credits), AuthZed Dedicated (single-tenant managed deployment on AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure), and SpiceDB Enterprise (self-hosted with support), supplemented by tooling such as the SpiceDB Operator, zed CLI, SpiceDB Playground, Materialize API, and MCP servers for AI coding assistants.
AuthZed targets enterprise software teams that need fine-grained, scalable authorization across multi-tenant SaaS, AI/RAG pipelines, financial services, healthcare, and marketplace applications. Named customers include OpenAI (37B+ documents processed for Apps in ChatGPT), Turo (1500+ req/s at p95 ≤ 3ms, two-plus years in production), Workday, Zoom, HackerRank, Matillion, Redpanda, National Bank, Neo Financial, and Heidi Health. The business model combines product-led growth (open-source SpiceDB, self-serve Cloud with starter credits, ~6,800 GitHub stars) with enterprise sales-led motions for Dedicated deployments, channel partnerships via AWS Marketplace and systems integrators (Axalon, WSO2), and premium support contracts.
As of late 2025, AuthZed has raised $15.8M total ($3.9M seed in 2021; $12M Series A in June 2024 led by General Catalyst), employs 11-50 people in a remote-first US/Europe model, holds SOC 2 Type 2 certification, and was named a KuppingerCole Rising Star in 2025. The company is actively investing in AI authorization as a forward growth vector while continuing to expand enterprise authorization use cases across industries and cloud platforms.
AuthZed firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- AuthZed
- Legal name
- AuthZed Inc.
- Website
- https://authzed.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2021
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- AuthZed provides scalable, Zanzibar-inspired authorization infrastructure for enterprise applications and AI workloads via its open-source SpiceDB database, multi-tenant Cloud, and single-tenant Dedicated deployments, serving customers like OpenAI, Turo, and Workday.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
AuthZed industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Authorization Infrastructure
- NAICS
- Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182), Custom Computer Programming Services (541511)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Cloud Identity Entitlement Management (CIEM) (HDADADAD)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Cloud Identity & Access Management Infrastructure (IAM/IdP/MFA) (HDABAHAF), Identity, Access & Key Management (IAM/KMS) as Cloud Core Services (HDABAAAH)
Keywords
Where AuthZed is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- New York
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
AuthZed business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- AuthZed Cloud: Multi-tenant managed service with CockroachDB as the durable foundation. Provides self-serve access with starter credits program. Revenue generated through subscription-based pricing for cloud usage.
- AuthZed Dedicated: Fully managed, single-tenant AuthZed deployment on CockroachDB. Built for enterprises with strict data isolation, global scale, compliance, and performance requirements. Premium managed hosting service with dedicated infrastructure.
- SpiceDB Enterprise: Enterprise-grade self-hosted SpiceDB with support packages for organizations that want to operate their own authorization infrastructure.
- AuthZed Support: Premium support plans including regular meetings with customer success team and proactive support for organizations using AuthZed products.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Monthly | AuthZed Cloud - Starter tier with $700 in credits |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels9 records
AuthZed product offering
Product offeringCore offering
AuthZed provides an enterprise-grade authorization platform built around SpiceDB, an open-source permissions database inspired by Google's Zanzibar model that implements relationship-based access control (ReBAC). The company sells managed cloud (AuthZed Cloud), single-tenant dedicated deployments (AuthZed Dedicated), self-hosted enterprise offerings (SpiceDB Enterprise), and premium support to organizations that need scalable, consistent permission management across billions of relationships for SaaS, AI, and financial services applications.
Product overview
AuthZed is an authorization platform for AI and modern applications, built around its open-source SpiceDB authorization database. The product portfolio consists of SpiceDB (open-source core), AuthZed Cloud (multi-tenant managed service), AuthZed Dedicated (single-tenant private deployment), and SpiceDB Enterprise (self-hosted). Supporting tools include SpiceDB Operator for Kubernetes, SpiceDB Clients in multiple languages (Go, Python, Node.js, Java, Ruby, .NET), zed CLI for schema development, AuthZed Materialize for pre-computing permissions, and MCP servers for AI assistant integration. The platform implements Google's Zanzibar model for relationship-based access control (ReBAC) and supports RAG and agentic AI authorization use cases.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- SpiceDB: Open-source permissions database inspired by Google's Zanzibar system, serving as the core technology of AuthZed's authorization infrastructure.
Products and services
- SpiceDB Open-source authorization database implementing Google's Zanzibar model for fine-grained, relationship-based access control (ReBAC). SpiceDB provides consistent, scalable permission management supporting billions of objects with strong consistency guarantees, used by developers to build permission systems without writing authorization code from scratch.
- AuthZed Cloud Multi-tenant managed authorization service built on CockroachDB, offering fast deployment and elastic scaling for organizations needing production-ready authorization without operational overhead. Includes self-serve signup with $700 starter credits program and serves mid-market teams requiring scalable permission infrastructure.
- AuthZed Dedicated Fully managed, single-tenant deployment of AuthZed's authorization platform running on CockroachDB in the customer's cloud provider and region of choice. Designed for enterprises with strict data isolation, global scale, compliance, and performance requirements, available on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
- SpiceDB Enterprise Self-hosted enterprise offering for organizations that want to deploy and manage SpiceDB within their own infrastructure with dedicated support packages from AuthZed. Used by enterprises operating their own authorization infrastructure with production support requirements.
- AuthZed Support Premium support plan for AuthZed customers including regular meetings with the customer success team, proactive support, and technical guidance during onboarding for organizations using AuthZed products in production.
Quantifiable outcome
- AuthZed enables OpenAI to process 37 billion+ documents while maintaining fine-grained access controls for 5 million+ business users
- +3 more outcomes
Companies that use AuthZed
Customer profileNamed customers13 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
AuthZed technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration10 records
AI capability4 records
Feature8 records
AuthZed partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- Cockroach LabscoreAuthZed Dedicated and AuthZed Cloud run on CockroachDB, providing customers with a battle-tested, globally distributed storage layer beneath their authorization infrastructure. CockroachDB's high availability, strong consistency, and multi-region replication properties carry through directly to AuthZed's authorization infrastructure.
- Amazon Web ServicescoreAuthZed is available directly through AWS Marketplace with active co-sell and joint go-to-market programs. AuthZed Dedicated supports deployment across AWS regions.
- AxalonminorIdentity and access management specialists helping enterprises in Western Europe modernize complex authentication and authorization stacks.
Scale indicators6 records
Recent moves7 records
Expansion highlights6 records
AuthZed competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Cerbos: Cerbos is a direct competitor offering open-source authorization policy-as-code with managed cloud and dedicated deployment options. Both AuthZed and Cerbos target engineering teams replacing custom authorization with a dedicated, developer-friendly layer, but AuthZed leans on Zanzibar-style ReBAC while Cerbos centers on attribute-based policy DSLs.
- Oso: Oso is a direct competitor providing an authorization library and managed service with its own policy language. Both companies target developers replacing ad-hoc permission code; Oso emphasizes drop-in libraries and a hosted authorization service, while AuthZed provides a Zanzibar-inspired database with cloud and dedicated deployment options.
- Permit.io: Permit.io is a direct competitor offering authorization as a service with a no-code policy editor, role management UI, and APIs. Like AuthZed, it serves engineering and product teams replacing legacy permission systems with a developer-friendly platform; it differentiates on UI-first policy authoring versus AuthZed's Zanzibar database approach.
- Open Policy Agent (OPA) / Styra: OPA is the open-source policy engine graduated by CNCF and commercialized by Styra. Both AuthZed and OPA target infrastructure teams needing centralized, declarative authorization at scale; OPA generalizes to policy decisions across domains, while AuthZed focuses specifically on application-level relationship-based authorization.
- Styra: Styra is the commercial steward of Open Policy Agent and offers enterprise policy-as-code platforms for authorization, Kubernetes admission control, and CI/CD. Both companies compete for the same enterprise buyers who need a centralized, declarative authorization layer; AuthZed centers on application-level ReBAC while Styra centers on OPA-based policy enforcement.
Broad incumbents
- Okta (Auth0): Okta, via Auth0, is the broad incumbent in identity and access management, offering authentication and increasingly fine-grained authorization features. Both companies serve enterprise customers with centralized access control, but Okta covers the full identity lifecycle while AuthZed focuses narrowly on application-level authorization.
- Amazon Web Services (IAM / Cedar): AWS provides native identity and authorization services, including the open-source Cedar policy language. As a broad incumbent, AWS bundles IAM into its cloud platform and is increasingly extending fine-grained authorization capabilities that overlap with AuthZed's core offering, particularly for AWS-native workloads.
Emerging players
- Keycloak: Keycloak is the open-source identity and access management solution under the CNCF. Both it and AuthZed have strong open-source adoption and serve developers building self-hosted or cloud-native identity stacks; Keycloak focuses on authentication and OAuth flows while AuthZed addresses the downstream authorization problem.
- Axiom (axiom-security): Axiom is an emerging CIEM and cloud identity security platform. It shares with AuthZed a focus on fine-grained cloud identity entitlements and least-privilege enforcement, but Axiom focuses on cloud-infrastructure entitlements (AWS, Azure, GCP) while AuthZed focuses on application-level user permissions.
Regional players
- Strata Identity: Strata Identity provides an identity orchestration layer for hybrid and multi-cloud environments, including authorization policy translation. It is adjacent to AuthZed in the broader identity fabric space, helping enterprises unify disparate identity and authorization systems rather than replacing the authorization layer itself.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
AuthZed social profiles
Digital presenceAuthZed compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance1 record
AuthZed financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
AuthZed leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles5 records
AuthZed funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds2 records
Investors4 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
AuthZed M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about AuthZed
What does AuthZed do?
AuthZed provides an enterprise-grade authorization platform built around SpiceDB, an open-source permissions database inspired by Google's Zanzibar model that implements relationship-based access control (ReBAC). The company sells managed cloud (AuthZed Cloud), single-tenant dedicated deployments (AuthZed Dedicated), self-hosted enterprise offerings (SpiceDB Enterprise), and premium support to organizations that need scalable, consistent permission management across billions of relationships for SaaS, AI, and financial services applications.
Is AuthZed a public or private company?
AuthZed is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was AuthZed founded?
AuthZed was founded in 2021. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is AuthZed based?
AuthZed is headquartered in New York, United States, in the North America region.
How does AuthZed make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. AuthZed Cloud is the primary driver. The others are authZed Dedicated, spiceDB Enterprise and authZed Support.
Who are AuthZed's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Cerbos, Oso, Permit.io, Open Policy Agent (OPA) / Styra and Styra. Broad incumbents are Okta (Auth0) and Amazon Web Services (IAM / Cedar). Emerging players are Keycloak and Axiom (axiom-security). Strata Identity is listed as a regional player.
Does AuthZed have an API?
Yes. AuthZed provides both gRPC and HTTP APIs for SpiceDB. The gRPC API reference is available at buf.build and the HTTP API reference is documented at /docs/spicedb/api/http-api. Client libraries are available for Python, Go, Node.js, Java, Ruby, and .NET. The Cloud API reference includes Postman Collection documentation. Developer documentation is at authzed.com/docs.
What industry is AuthZed in?
AuthZed's product category is Authorization Infrastructure. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDADADAD, Cloud Identity Entitlement Management (CIEM), with a secondary code of HDABAHAF, Cloud Identity & Access Management Infrastructure (IAM/IdP/MFA). Its NAICS code is 5182 and its SIC code is 7372.