# authzed

**Source:** https://geo.sig.ai/brands/authzed  
**Vertical:** Infrastructure  
**Subcategory:** Cloud Services  
**Tier:** Emerging  
**Website:** authzed.com  
**Last Updated:** 2026-04-14

## Summary

Open-source Google Zanzibar-inspired authorization service; fine-grained permissions for multi-tenant SaaS and AI agent access control at sub-millisecond latency.

## Company Overview

Authzed (now SpiceDB) is an open-source, Google Zanzibar-inspired authorization service that enables developers to define and evaluate fine-grained permissions at scale, decoupling authorization logic from application code. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in San Francisco, Authzed built SpiceDB — an open-source implementation of Google's Zanzibar authorization system that powers Google Drive, Google Docs, and YouTube's permission systems — making enterprise-grade authorization accessible to development teams without Google-scale infrastructure.

The company raised $3.1 million in seed funding and subsequently $10 million in Series A from Amplify Partners and others, building a commercial platform (SpiceDB Cloud and SpiceDB Dedicated) around the open-source core. SpiceDB allows developers to define complex permission schemas (who can view, edit, or delete what under what conditions), evaluate permissions in sub-millisecond latency, and handle the circular dependency challenges that make authorization systems notoriously difficult to build correctly.

In 2025, Authzed/SpiceDB operates at the forefront of the fine-grained authorization (FGA) market, which has grown significantly as enterprises build multi-tenant SaaS products with complex permission models. The company competes with Okta's Fine-Grained Authorization (FGA) product, Auth0's authorization features, and OpenFGA (CNCF project based on SpiceDB concepts). The growing complexity of AI agent permissions — which agents can access which data sources, on behalf of which users — has created new demand for the kind of policy-based authorization SpiceDB provides. Authzed's 2025-2026 focus includes AI-native authorization patterns for agentic systems.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### What is AuthZed?
AuthZed is a New York-based leader in permissions systems as a service, founded in 2020 by veterans from CoreOS and RedHat. The company helps organizations build fast, secure authorization that scales through their implementation of Google's Zanzibar paper.

### What products and services does AuthZed offer?
AuthZed offers permissions systems as a service, including SpiceDB (their open-source project), an authorization platform, and a Google Zanzibar implementation with strong consistency permissions. SpiceDB features strong consistency, global replication, and a relationship-based model.

### Who are the founders of AuthZed?
AuthZed was founded by Jake Moshenko, Joey Schorr, and Jimmy Zelinskie, all veterans from CoreOS and RedHat.

### When was AuthZed founded?
AuthZed was founded in 2020 and participated in Y Combinator's Winter 2021 (W21) batch.

### Where is AuthZed located?
AuthZed is based in New York, New York.

### How much funding has AuthZed raised?
AuthZed has raised $15.8M in total funding: a $12M Series A in June 2024 led by General Catalyst with Work-Bench and Amplify Partners, and a $3.9M seed round in 2021 led by Work-Bench with Y Combinator and Amplify.

### What are AuthZed's key achievements and metrics?
AuthZed experienced 6x growth in ARR in 2023 and is in the $10M+ revenue range. The company successfully open-sourced SpiceDB in October 2021, creating the first faithful implementation of Google's Zanzibar paper outside Google.

### What technology does AuthZed use?
AuthZed created SpiceDB, the first faithful implementation of Google's Zanzibar paper outside Google. The platform features strong consistency, global replication, and a relationship-based authorization model.

### What is SpiceDB?
SpiceDB is AuthZed's open-source project that implements Google's Zanzibar paper with strong consistency, global replication, and a relationship-based model. It was open-sourced in October 2021.

### What is AuthZed's recent news?
AuthZed raised a $12M Series A in June 2024 led by General Catalyst to accelerate permissions systems. The company achieved 6x ARR growth in 2023 and continues to expand its authorization platform.

## Tags

b2b, developer-tools, infrastructure, platform, security, cloud-native, saas

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*Data from geo.sig.ai Brand Intelligence Database. Updated 2026-04-14.*