EY names 1Kosmos chief executive officer finalist for award

EY has named 1Kosmos Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder Hemen Vimadalal a finalist for its 2026 Entrepreneur Of The Year New Jersey award, which recognises founders and business leaders selected by an independent judging panel.

Vimadalal was chosen based on criteria including entrepreneurial spirit, company growth, purpose and long-term impact. The recognition places him among New Jersey finalists in the long-running Ernst & Young awards programme.

Based in Iselin, New Jersey, 1Kosmos was founded in 2020 and focuses on identity verification and passwordless authentication. According to the company, it has grown from an early-stage start-up into a global supplier serving regulated sectors including financial services, healthcare, telecommunications and the public sector.

The business has raised more than USD $72 million in venture funding, according to company figures, and says its systems process millions of authentication events each day across its customer base.

Identity focus

At the centre of 1Kosmos's business is a platform that combines identity proofing, biometric authentication and passwordless access in a single system. The company says this approach ties digital access to a verified individual rather than to a password or other credential alone.

The company is also extending that model to AI agents as well as human users. As software agents take on more tasks for individuals and organisations, 1Kosmos says it is adapting verification and authentication so actions carried out by either a person or a machine can be tied back to a verified individual.

That shift reflects a broader question facing technology suppliers and their customers as automated agents begin to initiate transactions and access systems. Businesses in regulated industries, in particular, are under pressure to show who or what is acting inside their systems, and on whose authority.

In response, identity vendors are increasingly trying to show that controls built for human users can also apply when AI tools are allowed to execute tasks. For 1Kosmos, this has become part of its pitch as it seeks to expand its role in digital identity beyond conventional employee and customer authentication.

Vimadalal linked the award recognition to that shift in the market.

"This recognition reflects the journey we've been on to rethink how identity works in a world where both humans and AI agents initiate transactions and access systems," said Hemen Vimadalal, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of 1Kosmos.

"Our mission has always been to provide a friction-less way to verify the real person behind every interaction and create a trusted, fraud-proof and re-usable identity for business and consumer use cases. I'm grateful to our customers, partners, and team who have helped bring that vision to life and scale it across industries where trust is critical."

Growth story

The Entrepreneur Of The Year programme has been running for more than four decades in the US and has expanded internationally. In the US, it operates through 17 regional programmes, with judges selecting regional winners before they move on to national consideration.

For 1Kosmos, the finalist nod adds to a growth narrative built around funding, customer adoption and expansion into tightly regulated markets. Identity verification and authentication providers have attracted sustained investor interest in recent years as fraud, account takeover and digital onboarding have become board-level concerns for banks, telecoms operators, healthcare providers and government bodies.

Many of those sectors now want systems that can verify users remotely while reducing dependence on passwords. They also face tighter scrutiny over privacy, fraud prevention and the integrity of digital transactions, creating room for specialist suppliers that can combine onboarding, credential checks and ongoing authentication in one platform.

1Kosmos says its technology is used by major banks, telecommunications providers, technology and service providers, healthcare organisations and retailers. It argues that demand is being driven by the need to reduce impersonation and account takeover while keeping access to digital services manageable for users.

The New Jersey award shortlist places Vimadalal alongside other regional business leaders being assessed on the durability and impact of the companies they have built. For 1Kosmos, the recognition comes as it seeks to position itself not only as a passwordless authentication provider but also as a company addressing the identity questions raised by AI-driven transactions and system access.

Under Vimadalal's leadership, the company has grown from a start-up launched in 2020 into a business that says it supports millions of authentication events daily for customers worldwide.