The Intertrust group is a leading provider of digital rights management and technologies that enable trusted distributed computing. Founded in 1990, Intertrust is headquartered in Silicon Valley and has offices around the world. The company has a long history of innovation in digital rights management, software security, cryptography and trusted computing.
What does Intertrust do?
Intertrust provides software solutions and services that enable trusted computing across a wide range of industries and use cases. The company’s main areas of focus include:
- Digital rights management (DRM) – Providing secure DRM technologies to enable trusted use of digital content and software.
- Data rights management – Allowing organizations to securely share and collaborate on data while maintaining control and visibility.
- Secure mobile applications – Enabling app developers to build security and control into mobile apps.
- Authentication and authorization – Providing capabilities to securely identify users and devices and control access to resources.
- Financial services technologies – Delivering trusted computing solutions tailored for the financial industry.
- IoT security – Securing connectivity, data sharing and software updates across IoT systems and devices.
- Enterprise and cloud solutions – Helping companies adopt trusted computing models across enterprise IT systems and cloud environments.
At its core, Intertrust delivers technologies and services that enable trusted transactions, computing and data exchange between different systems, devices, networks and users. The company’s solutions aim to provide enhanced security, visibility and control for operations that span across modern heterogeneous IT environments.
Intertrust’s technology and products
Intertrust has developed an array of technologies and product capabilities over its 30+ year history. Some of the company’s key technology foundations include:
- Software security and encryption: Intertrust has extensive cryptography, obfuscation and whitebox techniques to secure software code and execution.
- Data rights management: Applying flexible policy controls over data usage and sharing across organizations and systems.
- Trusted execution environments (TEEs): Using hardware-based TEEs to provide secure enclaves for code execution and data processing.
- Key management: Scalable solutions for cryptographic key issuance, distribution and lifecycle management.
- Authorization and access controls: Fine-grained policy engines to control user and system access to resources.
- Media pipelines: Tools to securely process and distribute media content across networks and devices.
- Blockchain integration: Leveraging blockchain infrastructure to enable new trusted computing models.
Intertrust licenses its core technology platforms for integration into customer products and services. The company also offers a number of its own commercial software and SaaS products built using its underlying technologies. Some examples include:
- Intertrust ExpressPlay – DRM platform for premium video streaming services.
- Intertrust MediaRight – Content protection suite for entertainment media applications.
- Intertrust DataSecure – Secures data sharing and collaboration for enterprises.
- Intertrust Platform – Comprehensive set of tools for developing trusted applications.
- Intertrust Marlin DRM – Popular DRM platform for consumer electronics ecosystems.
Intertrust’s patents and intellectual property
Intertrust has a significant patent portfolio covering its innovations in trusted computing software and systems. The company has hundreds of awarded patents and pending applications across its technology areas. Some notable examples of Intertrust’s patented inventions include:
- Rights management encryption – Enabling persistent policy-based controls over data usage even when encrypted.
- Software protection techniques – Methods to obfuscate and secure software code against reverse engineering.
- Secure software updates – Authenticating and securely updating software on remote devices.
- Stateless DRM – Architectures for DRM not requiring continuous connectivity.
- Trusted user interfaces – Securing and controlling the pathways between UI inputs and program actions.
- DRM with blockchain – Applying blockchain for trusted media licensing and distribution.
Intertrust licenses its patents to many companies for incorporation into products and services across a wide range of industries. The strength of Intertrust’s intellectual property reinforces its position as a pioneer in trusted computing software.
History and founding of Intertrust
Intertrust was founded in 1990 by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Bennet S. Yee and Victor H. Shear. They recognized that emerging digital formats like audio CDs created new challenges for protecting copyrights that existing analog copy protection techniques could not solve. This inspired them to develop early digital rights management (DRM) solutions for trusted computing models.
The company was originally incorporated as the DigiBox startup focused on entertainment industry DRM applications. It was reincorporated as Intertrust Technologies Corporation in 1995. Some key milestones in Intertrust’s early history include:
- 1991 – Developed a container-based DRM system for protecting music CDs, an early precursor of modern DRM.
- 1993 – Released initial toolkit products for building secure software apps.
- 1996 – Launched Rights|System as one of the first commercial DRM platforms.
- 1998 – Acquired Xerox’s ContentGuard DRM technology, strengthening Intertrust patent portfolio.
- 1999 – Went public, with successful IPO valuing the company at over $2 billion.
Intertrust established itself as a pioneer in both DRM and broader software security. Its early work formed the foundations for many of today’s digital media security models.
Recent developments
More recently, Intertrust refocused its long-term technology vision on enabling the emerging wave of data-driven AI and IoT applications. Some of the company’s major developments in the past 5 years include:
- 2016 – Intertrust joined the Open Connectivity Foundation, contributing its IoT security expertise.
- 2017 – Acquired The Flybook to grow SaaS management and data sharing offerings.
- 2018 – Launched the Intertrust Platform as a comprehensive suite of technologies and tools.
- 2019 – Signed major patent license with Google covering key technologies behind Android.
- 2020 – Acquired International Business Machines’ patent assets related to blockchain and distributed ledger technologies.
- 2021 – Announced $153 million in new funding led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2.
Today, Intertrust continues to be at the forefront of defining solutions for trust in emerging IT environments like cloud, AI and blockchain. The company is focused on enabling trusted data exchange to support advanced data-driven services and applications.
Intertrust’s partnerships and customers
Intertrust has established partnerships with many leading technology providers to incorporate its solutions into products and services. The company works closely with:
- Hardware manufacturers like Intel, Qualcomm and MediaTek to provide trusted computing capabilities in CPUs, SoCs and other silicon.
- Platform companies like Google and Microsoft to offer trusted data services in cloud environments.
- Industry groups like the FIDO Alliance to define new trusted computing standards for authentication and identity management.
Some of the major companies using Intertrust technologies include:
- Philips – Incorporating Intertrust media security into home audio and entertainment devices.
- ARM – Licensing Intertrust IP to enhance trusted computing in ARM-based chips and applications.
- Cisco – Relying on Intertrust solutions to enable secure IoT ecosystems.
- Alibaba Cloud – Implemented Intertrust data protection for enterprises using Alibaba Cloud services.
- Oracle – Integrating Intertrust blockchain technologies into Oracle Cloud Infrastructure blockchain services.
- Sony – Long-time Intertrust licensee across consumer electronics products like smart TVs and gaming consoles.
Intertrust counts 21 of the top 25 media and communications companies as customers. Its technologies also power trusted data platforms across automotive, healthcare, financial services and other industries.
Financial performance and funding
As a private company, Intertrust no longer discloses detailed financial results. The last year for which Intertrust reported earnings was 2017, with revenue of $152 million and a net loss of $53 million for the year. At the time, Intertrust said it was investing heavily in new product development.
Prior to that, Intertrust saw rapid growth in the early 2010s, with revenue climbing from $55 million in 2011 to peak at $214 million in 2014. Growth leveled off after that as the company’s legacy DRM business matured. Intertrust has since focused on expanding into newer areas like data sharing and IoT security.
Intertrust has raised approximately $400 million in total disclosed funding over its lifetime from investors including SoftBank, Sapphire Ventures, J.P. Morgan and U.S. Venture Partners. The latest funding round was led by SoftBank in 2021 at an estimated $1.5 billion valuation.
Leadership and culture
Intertrust is led by CEO Talal Shamoon, who took over leadership in 2021 after previously working at the company from 2009 to 2016. Other key executives include:
- Lisa Shamoon – Chief Legal Officer
- Greg Saunders – Chief Operating Officer
- Sam Teller – Chief Trust Officer
- Kunal Verma – Chief Technology Officer
- Patrick Shannahan – Chief Financial Officer
The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and has major offices in England, Germany and Netherlands. Intertrust employs approximately 740 people worldwide.
Intertrust fosters an engineering-driven culture focused on cryptocurrency, blockchain, machine learning and other advanced technologies. Employees praise the company’s collaborative work environment and opportunity to innovate in emerging technology areas.
Conclusion
For over 30 years, Intertrust has been instrumental in defining and delivering trusted computing software to enable more secure digital services. The company started out pioneering early DRM systems and has evolved to provide a comprehensive suite of technologies and platforms for enabling trusted transactions and data exchange.
Going forward, Intertrust is positioned to play a leading role in securing emerging paradigms like IoT, cloud computing and blockchain. With its strong technology portfolio and thought leadership, Intertrust will continue advancing the state of the art in computing trust and powering next-generation digital businesses.