Onfido one of the pioneers in the world of identity verification using computer vision and other artificial intelligence tools, is being acquired by Trust, the private company that offers a range of certification and verification services around payment cards, passwords, network and website access, device access, etc. It is buying the London-based startup, sources say, for a figure “well in excess” of $400 million.
The deal does not yet have a completion date as it is still in the regulatory approval process. At this time, the two companies formally describe these as “early and exclusive” negotiations. Once that process is complete, the plan will be to integrate Onfido's tools into Entrust's broader technology, Entrust CEO and President Todd Wilkinson said in an interview.
“As we bring Onfido together with Entrust, we will have a leadership position across virtually the entire identity lifecycle,” he said. Entrust has been around since the 1990s, and Datacard (which acquired Entrust and rebranded the company with the latter name) has been around since 1969, so it's notable that one of the key aspects it's picking up is a comprehensive incorporation of technology based on AI. “With tools like Onfido’s Atlas AI, it’s no surprise that AI is a big draw for us, right?” he added.
The price and other financial terms of the deal will not be disclosed, Wilkinson said. He noted that Entrust itself is profitable, and has been for several years, and currently has "just under $10.000 billion" in annual revenue with around XNUMX customers, including governments, large banks around the world and large corporations. It has no shareholders as such and is privately owned by a German family, he said.
Meanwhile, Onfido was founded by Husayn Kassai while he was still a student at Oxford. He was later joined by Eamon Jubbawy and Ruhul Amin as co-founders.
Much of its journey has reflected other major currents in the world of technology: the last big AI boom in the 2010s (it was founded in 2012), which led it to raise money from investors such as TPG, Salesforce, Microsoft and almost 50 more companies. and known people. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, his star rose higher, as todas Transactions became digital and the need for identity verification tools based on online environments became an even greater priority. In fact, the last funding he revealed was $100 million in 2020, at the peak at that time.
The outcome of the post-pandemic economic downturn and the return of “the new normal” (changes that have affected many other technology companies) definitely affected Onfido as well. Kassai stepped away from the business a couple of years ago and we had heard that he was informally looking for a buyer for the past few years.
Entrust's decision to acquire Onfido comes at a key time in the world of technology. With a deluge of security and data breaches top of mind for many consumers and businesses, and a wave of regulations aimed at better data protection, identity verification and certification technologies are struggling to catch up with the deluge of digital services. cloud-based solutions that are now emerging. integral part of how the world operates, but they have also expanded the attack surface for malicious hackers looking for vulnerabilities to exploit.
The company already has a wide range of services and works in some of the most sensitive verticals in the market, such as government and financial services; but an AI acquisition will give it another critical step in meeting the challenges of providing services that are fit for the challenges of today, and likely tomorrow.
It also speaks to the broader trend we've seen in the consolidation of point solutions into larger platforms.
"I think it's a confusing market for a lot of end users, because there are a lot of players in this space," Wilkinson said. “This has been great from a creativity and competitiveness perspective, but it's also difficult from an end-user perspective. What we've seen in the last year is, frankly, that for companies like ours that have stable financial platforms, it was the opportunity to prosper.”
From Onfido there is only one statement in a press release:
We are excited to engage in early and exclusive discussions with Entrust to potentially expand access to verification solutions. digital identity most advanced and secure solutions worldwide,” Mike Tuchen, CEO of Onfido, said in a statement. “Digital identities are enabling new levels of simplicity and access for people around the world. The potential of powerful identity verification based on artificial intelligence and machine learning “Onfido and Entrust’s proven identity security solutions would enable a new world of digital trust.”
