Why Multifactor is a Public Benefit Corporation
Today, we're proud to announce that Multifactor, Inc. is officially a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation (PBC). This decision reflects our fundamental commitment to creating technologies that improve the cybersecurity landscape for everyone, not just our immediate customers. In this post, I'd like to explain what this means and why we believe it's essential for our mission.
What is a Public Benefit Corporation?
A Public Benefit Corporation is a for-profit entity that balances the financial interests of shareholders with the pursuit of a specific public benefit. Unlike traditional C-corporations that primarily focus on maximizing shareholder value, PBCs are legally empowered to pursue public good alongside business growth.
As a PBC, Multifactor has a charter that explicitly outlines our public benefit commitment. We are dedicated to "creating a material positive impact on the cybersecurity and privacy posture of American and international entities engaged in digital operations or utilizing networked technologies, including improving cryptographic resilience against quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and other cyber threats."
This isn't just marketing language—it's a legally binding commitment that shapes our decision-making, accountability, and corporate governance.
Why We Made This Choice
Alignment with Our Core Mission
Multifactor was founded with a dual purpose: to build exceptional identity security products and to advance the field of applied cryptography. As emerging threats like quantum computing and AI-enabled vulnerability discovery become more prevalent, we believe the cybersecurity industry needs solutions that fundamentally rethink security foundations—not just incremental improvements to existing approaches.
Our PBC status formally recognizes that producing high-quality applied cryptography research is not just good for our business but essential for addressing the broader challenges in cybersecurity. This research forms the basis of our technological advantage while simultaneously contributing to the collective security of digital systems worldwide.
Building Trust in a Zero-Trust World
The irony isn't lost on us that as a company dedicated to zero-trust security, we're asking our customers to trust us with a critical component of their security infrastructure. Our PBC status demonstrates that our commitment to security goes beyond profit motives—it's in our legal DNA.
When we say we're developing solutions that don't require trusted software or hardware, we're backing that with a corporate structure that prioritizes security outcomes alongside business success. This creates an additional layer of accountability that traditional corporate structures don't provide.
Expanding Access to Advanced Security
Identity security remains one of the most frequently exploited yet underserved pillars of cybersecurity. By structuring as a PBC, we're committing to expand access to advanced security technologies that have traditionally been available only to organizations with significant resources.
Our generous free tiers, open-source contributions, and research publications are part of this commitment. We believe that by making cutting-edge cryptographic security more accessible, we can raise the security baseline for everyone—not just those who can afford enterprise security solutions.
What This Means for Our Customers
Enhanced Technological Innovation
Our PBC status allows us to invest meaningfully in cryptographic research that might not show immediate commercial returns but creates significant long-term value. This research directly improves our products and contributes to the broader field of cybersecurity.
Our customers benefit from solutions backed by peer-reviewed research published in top-tier security venues like USENIX Security and IEEE EuroS&P. This research-driven approach ensures that our products aren't just following industry best practices—they're helping to define them.
Aligned Incentives
As a PBC, we're legally structured to avoid the common tension between short-term profit maximization and long-term security excellence. We don't have to choose between what's good for our business and what's good for security—our charter explicitly aligns these interests.
This means our customers can trust that we won't sacrifice security for growth, cut corners on cryptographic implementations, or prioritize features over fundamental security properties. When we make product decisions, security considerations have equal weight to business considerations.
Transparent Operations
PBCs maintain higher transparency standards than traditional corporations. We regularly assess and report on our progress toward our public benefit objectives, giving customers deeper insight into our operations and priorities.
This transparency extends to our approach to cryptography as well. Rather than relying on security through obscurity, we publish our research, submit to peer review, and welcome scrutiny of our methods—because we know that's how the best security solutions are built.
Our Public Benefit in Practice
Our public benefit commitment manifests in several concrete ways:
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Research Publications: We regularly publish our cryptographic innovations in peer-reviewed venues, contributing to the advancement of the field.
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Open-Source Software: We maintain open-source implementations of core cryptographic primitives like MFKDF, allowing the broader community to benefit from and build upon our research.
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Generous Free Tiers: We offer substantial free usage allowances for our products, making advanced security accessible to projects of all sizes.
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Educational Resources: We're committed to creating resources that help organizations understand and implement better security practices, regardless of whether they use our products.
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Progressive Onboarding: We design our products with adoption in mind, making it easier for organizations to transition from legacy systems to more secure solutions.
Looking Forward
As we continue to develop our suite of zero-trust identity security products, our PBC status will guide our decisions and ensure we remain focused on both business success and our broader security mission.
The challenges in cybersecurity are growing more complex every day. Traditional approaches that rely on trusted software are increasingly vulnerable to emerging threats, and the industry needs new paradigms that can provide mathematical guarantees rather than just best-effort security.
As a Public Benefit Corporation, Multifactor is uniquely positioned to lead this transition by bringing Web 3.0's trustless security model to conventional applications while maintaining excellent user experiences.
We're grateful to our early customers, investors, and partners who share our vision of a more secure digital future, and we're excited to continue this journey with you.
If you have any questions about our PBC status or what it means for your organization, please reach out—we'd love to discuss how our commitment to public benefit aligns with your security needs.
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