1Password, the Toronto-based password and identity security company, acquired Apono, a just-in-time access company with headquarters in New York and an office in Tel Aviv, on June 15, 2026. 1Password did not disclose the terms. Israeli business daily Globes reported that it was paying more than $250 million.
Apono's 80 employees joined 1Password's team of about 1,400 and stayed in their existing New York and Tel Aviv offices. 1Password said it would keep selling Apono as a standalone product while also building its technology into its new Unified Access Platform.
The deal was 1Password's fifth acquisition and its third since it began positioning itself around AI, after Boston-based Kolide in 2024 and UK-based Trelica in 2025. It was also the company's first move into Israel. Globes reported that 1Password planned to open a development centre there with more than 50 staff and to keep hiring.
What Apono built
Apono was founded in 2022 by Rom Carmel, its chief executive, and Ofir Stein, its chief technology officer. Both had spent more than 20 years in DevOps and security. Carmel previously held research and development management roles in the cyber division of Israel's Prime Minister's Office, and Stein served as an officer in the Israel Air Force's Ofek unit and was an early developer at Logz.io.
The company sells access governance for cloud applications and corporate databases. Instead of standing permissions that stay in place indefinitely, its platform grants access only when it is needed, scopes it to a specific task, limits it to a set time window and revokes it automatically when the work is done. The company calls this a just-in-time and just-enough approach, and it applies to employees, machines and AI agents.
Globes reported that Apono had dozens of customers in the United States, including Fortune 500 companies and technology and insurance firms from the US, Europe and Israel. Named customers included OpenWeb, Bloomreach and HPE.
“It's a critical unlock of the vision that we've got.”
The founders and the funding
Apono had raised $54 million before the deal, according to BetaKit. VC News Daily lists a $15.5 million Series A in September 2024 led by New Era Capital Partners, with Mindset Ventures, RedSeed and Silvertech Ventures taking part, and a $34 million Series B in November 2025 led by U.S. Venture Partners (USVP), with 33N Ventures, Swisscom Ventures and Vertex Ventures.
Globes reported that the November round valued Apono at $115 million, meaning the sale price was more than double that figure about seven months later. It said the company's three main investors were USVP, represented by Jacques Benkoski, New Era and Miron Capital, each estimated to hold 10% to 15%. Most of the shares were held by Apono's roughly 80 employees, making the sale a sizeable payout for staff as well as founders.
Why 1Password is buying
1Password made its name storing passwords for individuals and companies. It now wants to help businesses control access to the credentials that employees, machines and AI agents need, from what BetaKit described as a single control plane. On the day of the deal it launched Credential Broker, a product in its Unified Access Platform designed to reduce the number of passwords stored inside applications. Apono's role is to decide when, why and for exactly how long each party can use those credentials.
Chief executive David Faugno told BetaKit that the deal started when 1Password went looking for products to solve its own access problems and found that Apono had built the system the way 1Password would have designed it. He said it accelerated the company's product roadmap materially and described Israel's pool of security talent as tremendous.
A larger 1Password
Faugno said the acquisition opened the way for 1Password to build a much larger business than it had originally planned. BetaKit had earlier reported that 1Password passed $400 million in annual recurring revenue.
For Apono's existing customers, 1Password said the product would remain available on its own. The larger change is that Apono's access controls become part of 1Password's Unified Access Platform, which the company is pitching to businesses that want to deploy autonomous AI without putting sensitive systems and data at risk.
