In our recurring Who Are These People segment, Vector offers founders an opportunity to discuss their projects, covering aspects such as their products, marketing strategies, monetisation, investments, and plans. The focus this time is on StackBob, a Ukrainian startup building an IAM solution for centralised control of access, passwords, and licences.
Vector’s editor-in-chief Yuliia Tkach interviewed Ole Shved, CEO and co-founder, about the product’s features, promotion, investments, and plans.
Conception
StackBob has two co-founders.
- Ole Shved, CEO. His expertise spans more than seven years in product management and marketing. Ole’s track record includes scaling a B2B SaaS product from its MVP and first global clients such as Coca-Cola, Virgin, and Adidas to an exit in three years.
- Yaroslav Rozum, CTO. He is a specialist in Computer and Information Systems Security, bringing over seven years of experience in architecting complex SaaS solutions, software development, and cybersecurity.
The founders previously worked together at the B2B marketing startup Ad-Lib.io, which was acquired by Smartly (Finland) for $100 million in 2021. Ole’s role involved leading the product, where he built processes and scaled the product development team. Yaroslav was a foundational member of the engineering team. The idea of creating their own product began to take shape in the summer of 2022.
«We started by listing every pain point we had faced in our work: endless SaaS licences, lost passwords, and ‘ghost’ accounts lingering in the system. This administrative chaos reached its peak in the previous company when the team expanded from three to 35 members.
Instead of building yet another “expense panel”, we developed StackBob 1.0 (initially Stackoon): an agent that could integrate with any web application to manage licences», — Ole recalls.
StackBob was accepted into the Techstars Seattle batch within a few months. During the process, it became clear that the focus needed to shift to cybersecurity and pivoted StackBob into an IAM (Identity & Access Management) platform for centralised control of access, passwords, and licences for any corporate application, without SCIM/SAML limitations.
There are currently six professionals working in the main team.
Product and audience
StackBob is a B2B SaaS IAM solution for the centralised control of access, passwords, and licences.
StackBob integrates with the entire corporate ecosystem: all SaaS applications (from Jira and Slack to CRM and ERP), major cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP), and identity providers (Entra ID, Google Workspace). The AI agent gives StackBob the capability to integrate applications without SCIM API or SAML SSO, and to automatically manage team processes like onboarding new hires, role adjustments, or subscription renewals.
The platform’s core features, as explained by the CEO:
- automated access assignment and revocation for instant user permission management;
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) model for policy-oriented distribution of permissions;
- access logs for comprehensive audits and regulatory compliance;
- shadow IT detection to identify and flag unauthorised tools;
- corporate password manager for secure storage and sharing of credentials;
- subscription management and software cost savings by revoking and eliminating redundant or idle licences.
Ole underscores the platform’s security commitment, stating that client data is never passed on to LLM providers or used for training of third-party models. Platform security has been validated by independent audits under SOC 2 Type II. All data is encrypted using the AES-256 algorithm, a protocol identical to that used by government and financial agencies».
Today, StackBob’s client base exceeds 5,000 users, spanning a wide range of industries, such as retail, marketing, IT outsourcing, and the SaaS sector.
The target audience includes organisations with 50 to 2,000 employees, specifically those that rely heavily on SaaS and Cloud platforms and manage geographically dispersed teams. «While they are of a size where they must contend with genuine security and compliance risks, they frequently do not have the financial or human resources to adopt heavyweight IAM systems like Okta or Microsoft Entra ID», — explains Ole Shved.
Business model
StackBob is a B2B SaaS platform that operates on a subscription model, where the cost depends on the number of users within the company. The basic plan begins at $4 per user monthly.
Clients can choose from three subscription options:
- Growth (from $4 per user). This plan includes automatic detection of all company applications (including Shadow IT), cost analytics, licence renewal reminders, a password manager, access control for SaaS and cloud services, and the identification of redundant licences and inactive accounts.
- Scale (from $6 per user). This option includes automated access management, an RBAC model, and comprehensive audit logs essential for meeting ISO 27001 and SOC2 compliance requirements.
- Enterprise (contact for pricing). This package offers bespoke solutions crafted for unique requirements, on-premise deployment options, and extended support services.
Companies with up to 10 employees are granted free access to StackBob essential features.
Investments
The startup has raised $50,000 from the Ukrainian Startup Fund in April 2025, and another $100,000 from Google for its seed round.
Plans
«We are building StackBob to become the new standard for access management. We aim to democratise security and control, making the standards currently deemed ‘luxurious’ — and only affordable to those with massive contracts — available to every company, regardless of their financial resources or stage of development.
In the short term, we are focused on scaling within high-risk industries and expanding our presence across Europe and the US. We are also investing in the development of new platform modules, with a key priority being the security of autonomous AI agents, an emerging class now recognised as privileged identities.
The autonomous IAM agent is scheduled to be announced shortly. This marks our transition to a truly autonomous IAM system. The agent will observe every application, instantly identifying and addressing modifications to access rights or licences with zero manual intervention. Essentially, it is an IT admin co-pilot that will operate discreetly behind the scenes 24/7.
Looking ahead, we aim for StackBob to be the global identity and access platform, transforming security into a basic, universally available service, just like email or a standard company website», — summarised Ole Shved.