Google acquires Bitium to boost its cloud identity management capabilities

Google today announced it is acquiring Bitium. Financial details were not disclosed, but Bitium will be joining the Google Cloud team.

Founded in March 2012, Bitium provides identity and access management (IAM) services that let its customers give their employees a single login for multiple cloud services. Single sign-on (SSO) offerings like Bitium’s are designed to improve security by making sure employees only need to remember one password while giving administrators a centralized way of controlling identity throughout their organizations.

Google will be using that technology to augment its existing cloud IAM capabilities. The deal should help Google Cloud compete against Microsoft, which offers its own Azure Active Directory service to provide cloud-based identity management.

It’s a move that puts Google in closer competition with other cloud SSO providers like Okta, Ping, and OneLogin, but the company said in a blog post that it’s still committed to working closely with its partners in that arena.

Bitium cofounders Scott Kriz and Erik Gustavson said in a blog post that the company will support its existing customer base through the transition. It’s unclear what will happen after the company becomes fully integrated into Google Cloud, however.

The company raised a total of $14.9 million from investors including Polaris Ventures and Resolute.vc, according to data from Crunchbase.

This is the second Google acquisition in two weeks. Last Thursday, the company announced it would acquire talent and intellectual property licenses from HTC to augment its Pixel smartphone business.