Three companies are grouped together as identity-and-access-management vendors — the software that issues, governs and revokes the credentials employees use to log in. Over the past month the group has averaged an 8% gain. Almost all of it belongs to one name, and for once the fundamentals point the same way.

The business that grew

SailPoint sells identity governance: software that decides who inside a company may reach which system, reviews those entitlements, and increasingly extends the same control to machine accounts and autonomous software agents. Its June quarter showed annual recurring revenue of $1,163m, up 26% year on year, on revenue of $280m, up 22%. Revenue growth has held in the low twenties for four straight quarters — 33.1%, 19.8%, 22.7% and 21.6% — roughly double Okta's pace. Gross margin under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) rose 9.3 percentage points to 64.7%, as the accounting amortisation left over from Thoma Bravo's 2022 buyout rolls off; gross profit grew 41.9% on 21.6% revenue growth.

It is not yet profitable. The quarter carried an operating loss of $79.8m, a −28.5% margin, worse sequentially than the prior quarter's −13.6% though far better than the −80.3% a year ago. So earnings multiples do not apply: the usable lens is 9.5 times trailing sales and 14.3 times trailing gross profit. Thoma Bravo's February 2025 relisting priced 60 million shares at $23, raising $1.38bn. At $18.76 the stock is about 18% below that price and 20.6% below its twelve-month high, on a revenue base that has grown from $450m in fiscal 2022 to $1.07bn in fiscal 2026. Verdict: the business CONFIRMS the move, and the valuation suggests the re-rating has not happened yet.

The timing is the caveat. The gain came in nine consecutive up sessions into early August, a cumulative 25% that added about $2.0bn of market value, starting the week the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell over 5% and 44 of 51 software stocks finished July positive — part of a rotation in which chip stocks excluding Nvidia shed nearly $1.7 trillion of market value in July. SailPoint led its two peers, but it did not move on its own news.

The multiple that grew instead

Okta sells single sign-on, multi-factor authentication and directory services to enterprises and governments, plus the Auth0 customer-login business it bought in 2021. Its profitability turnaround is real and finished: fiscal 2026 delivered its first meaningful GAAP profit — $153m of operating income against a $63m loss the prior year — and last quarter operating income grew 43.6% on 11.2% revenue growth, lifting operating margin to 7.3%. Remaining performance obligations rose 16%, net revenue retention inflected up to 107%, and 570 customers now spend over $1m a year. It has agreed to buy identity-threat-detection startup Permiso Security for close to $200m, aimed at policing AI agents' access.

But growth is decelerating — 12.7%, 11.6%, 11.6%, 11.2% across four quarters, guided to 9–10% this year — while the multiple has run. In early May the shares stood at $13.5bn of market value and 4.6 times sales; today it is $25.1bn and 8.4 times, 39.3x forward earnings for consensus revenue growth of 10.0% this year and 9.5% next. A consensus twelve-month target of $120.45 across 44 analysts sits roughly 13% below the $151 spot price. Verdict: the business is INCONCLUSIVE — margins expanding, growth shrinking — and the valuation CONTRADICTS the advance.

BlackBerry, the third name, no longer sells identity software at all: it divested Cylance, and QNX, its embedded automotive operating system, supplied $72.3m of $152.9m in quarterly revenue. Management raised full-year guidance to $594–621m citing a royalty backlog near $1bn, yet the stock fell 16.8% over the month from 89x trailing earnings after a June melt-up. Its 50-day average slipped below the step it had held since spring on 6 August — a deterioration, while SailPoint's crossed upward on 31 July.

The setup

Where it stands — SailPoint's recurring revenue grew 26% and its shares trade below their February 2025 relisting price; Okta's multiple doubled on decelerating growth. Would confirm — SailPoint's next quarter holds annual recurring revenue growth above 25% with the operating loss narrowing from −28.5%. Would invalidate — SailPoint ARR growth slipping toward Okta's high single digits, or gross margin gains stalling below 65%. Watch next — Okta reports fiscal second-quarter results after the close on 26 August 2026, guiding to $790–794m. Valuation — SailPoint at 9.5x trailing sales, no forward earnings multiple while loss-making, versus roughly 15x at its 2025 listing.