The Rise of Secrets Management in the Post-Pandemic Era
Pre-pandemic, secrets management was growing in adoption as companies began to move their operations online. However, with the health crises forcing businesses to accelerate their digital transformation, secrets management has become an indispensable part of operations. According to a 2021 survey by 1Password, 65% of companies now have more than 500 secrets, while 18% have more than they can count.
Managing secrets is a tedious and high-cost endeavor, with DevOps and IT workers spending an average of 25 minutes each day managing secrets at an annual payroll expense of roughly $8.5 billion. The search for solutions to this challenge has given rise to startups like Doppler, which offers a service that developers can use to manage and secure secrets ‘at scale’ in enterprise environments.
The Challenge of Secrets Management
Existing secrets management tools are designed by security engineers, for security engineers. These tools are cumbersome to use and lack focus on the developer experience. Doppler’s co-founder and CEO, Brian Vallelunga, told TechCrunch via email: "After substantial research, I started working on a ‘SecretsOps’ platform designed for developers."
Doppler: A New Approach to Secrets Management
Doppler is a startup that offers a cloud-based secrets management solution. The company has raised $28.8 million in capital to date and plans to more than double its workforce from 22 to 50 by the end of the year.
"We will invest heavily — and simultaneously — in engineering and product development," Vallelunga said. "We will launch new features, including a ‘pull request’ flow for secrets, ‘secrets rotation,’ and ‘dynamic secrets.’ These capabilities will give developers and their teams the tools they need to review critical changes to their secrets at scale."
The Future of Secrets Management
Doppler’s approach to secrets management is centered around providing a seamless experience for developers. The company believes that secrets management should be an integral part of the development process, rather than a separate, cumbersome task.
"We want to give organizations a way to move off of long-lived static secrets," Vallelunga said. "We will provide ‘dynamic secrets’ generated on-demand and ‘static secrets’ defined ahead of time."
Investors Back Doppler
Doppler’s Series A was led by CRV with participation from GV, Sequoia Capital, and Y Combinator as well as angels including GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke, Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel, Twilio founder Evan Cooke, and Postman CTO Ankit Sobti.
Conclusion
Secrets management is a critical component of digital operations. Doppler’s approach to secrets management is centered around providing a seamless experience for developers. With its investment in engineering and product development, Doppler is poised to become a leader in the secrets management market.
About the Author
Kyle Wiggers is a senior reporter at TechCrunch with a special interest in artificial intelligence. His writing has appeared in VentureBeat and Digital Trends as well as gadget blogs including Android Police, Android Authority, Droid-Life, and XDA-Developers.
Related Topics
- Cloud Computing
- CRV
- Developers
- Doppler
- Enterprise
- Funding
- Media & Entertainment
- Security
- Sequoia Capital
- Startups
- Y Combinator
