ActivIdentity sells up in latest 2FA takeover

Rivals admit union with physical security outfit HID is a decent fit

ActivIdentity has become the latest two-factor authentication (2FA) specialist to be picked off by a larger vendor after joining forces with HID Global.

Physical access control specialist HID Global’s parent, ASSA ABLOY, today announced the completion of its $162m (£104m) acquisition of NASDAQ-listed ActivIdentity.

HID operates in the physical access control and secure card issuance space. It said the move would position it as a converged provider of physical and logical access convergence.

For its fiscal year to 30 September, ActivIdentity tumbled to a net loss of $5.7m as revenues fell from $62.3m to $57.7m year on year.

Both firms are based in California, although HID has 2,000 employees to ActivIdentity's 240.

HID chief executive Denis Hébert said: “With the addition of ActivIdentity’s market leadership in intelligent identity assurance and its broad portfolio of complementary credential management, strong authentication and security client products, we will be uniquely positioned to provide the integrated solutions that our customers need for physical and logical access convergence.”

HID stressed that it recognised the value of ActivIdentity’s channel partners, which include distributor Arrow ECS and VARs Sysec and Spherica in the UK.

Neil Hollister, chief executive of rival 2FA vendor Cyrptocard, described the union as a “decent fit”.

“Actividentity is primarily perceived as a smart card authentication company, so that seems to make sense with the physical and logical access integration story HID is telling.”

Other 2FA specialists recently snapped up include Varcot, which was bought by CA in August, and VeriSign, the security wing of which Symantec snapped up in May.

“There is a lot of it going on because authentication is a fast-growing and attractive market and people want a piece of the action,” said Hollister.