# Ev Kontsevoy

> Ev Kontsevoy is the co-founder and CEO of Teleport, a cybersecurity company building the identity-native infrastructure access platform trusted by organizations like Samsung, NASDAQ, and IBM. A serial entrepreneur who grew up in Siberia and studied applied mathematics, he previously co-founded Mailgun (acquired by Rackspace in 2012) before starting Teleport in 2015 to eliminate the fragmented, secrets-based approach to infrastructure security. Under his leadership, Teleport reached a $1.1B valuation with its $110M Series C, and he authored an O'Reilly book on identity-native infrastructure access management. He is now focused on defining agentic identity frameworks for the era of AI-driven enterprise infrastructure.

- **Role:** CEO and Co-Founder at Teleport
- **Organizations:** Teleport, Mailgun, Gravitational, Y Combinator, Rackspace
- **From:** Krasnoyarsk, Russia
- **Nationality:** Russian-American
- **Education:** BS Applied Mathematics, Siberian Federal University (formerly Krasnoyarsk State University)
- **Known for:** Co-founded Mailgun (2010), scaling it to serve Slack, Lyft, GitHub, and Reddit before acquisition by Rackspace in 2012, Built Teleport to $1.1B valuation with $110M Series C funding (2022), Total funding raised for Teleport: $175.3M from Kleiner Perkins, Bessemer Venture Partners, Insight Partners, and Y Combinator

## Career timeline

- **1994-1998** — Studied Applied Mathematics at Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk
- **1999-2003** — Software Engineer at National Instruments
- **2006-2008** — Lead Engineer at GE Security
- **2010** — Co-founded Mailgun Technologies with Taylor Wakefield
- **2011** — Mailgun accepted into Y Combinator Winter 2011 batch; served as CEO
- **2012** — Rackspace acquired Mailgun; joined Rackspace as Director of Product and Strategy
- **2012-2015** — Director of Product and Strategy at Rackspace, overseeing Mailgun integration and building OnMetal product line
- **2015** — Co-founded Teleport (then Gravitational) with Taylor Wakefield and Alexander Klizhentas; accepted into Y Combinator Summer 2015
- **2016** — Teleport officially launched as open-source infrastructure access platform
- **2019** — Teleport raised Series A funding from Kleiner Perkins
- **2022** — Teleport raised $110M Series C at $1.1B valuation led by Bessemer Venture Partners
- **2023** — Co-authored 'Identity-Native Infrastructure Access Management' (O'Reilly Media)
- **2024** — Hosted Teleport Connect 2024 conference; focused on identity attacks as predominant infrastructure threat
- **2026** — Launched Agentic Identity Framework; Teleport ranked #9 in Security on Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies list

## Achievements

- Co-founded Mailgun (2010), scaling it to serve Slack, Lyft, GitHub, and Reddit before acquisition by Rackspace in 2012
- Built Teleport to $1.1B valuation with $110M Series C funding (2022)
- Total funding raised for Teleport: $175.3M from Kleiner Perkins, Bessemer Venture Partners, Insight Partners, and Y Combinator
- Co-authored 'Identity-Native Infrastructure Access Management' published by O'Reilly Media
- Led Teleport to serve 500+ enterprise customers including Samsung, NASDAQ, IBM, and Epic Games
- Teleport ranked #9 in Security on Fast Company's 2026 Most Innovative Companies list
- Two-time Y Combinator founder (Mailgun W2011, Teleport/Gravitational S2015)
- AWS Rising Star Partner of the Year 2025
- Launched Agentic Identity Framework (January 2026) defining new security category for AI agents
- Teleport open-source project reached 20,400+ GitHub stars and 2,100+ forks
- Winner of 4 categories at Cyber Defense Magazine's Global InfoSec Awards (2026)

## Latest updates

- **2026-03** — Teleport ranked #9 in Security on Fast Company's 2026 Most Innovative Companies list
- **2026-01** — Launched Teleport's Agentic Identity Framework to address AI agent security gap
- **2025-12** — Won AWS Rising Star Partner of the Year at AWS re:Invent
- **2025-07** — Teleport 18.0.0 released with session authentication and MCP server support
- **2025-04** — Named TAG Top Five Leader in Data Access Governance
- **2024-12** — Delivered closing remarks at Teleport Connect 2024 conference

## Links

- Website: https://goteleport.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kontsevoy/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/kontsevoy
- GitHub: https://github.com/kontsevoy

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/ev-kontsevoy
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-26