Just months after buying IdenTrust, private equity firms Parallax Capital Partners and StepStone Group have offloaded the digital identity authentication firm to Swedish lock manufacturer Assa Abloy. Financial terms were not disclosed.
IdenTrust was founded in 1999 by a group of banks, including Citi, Bank of America, Chase, Barclays, HSBC, and Deutsche Bank, to provide a multi-bank ID authentication system.
The San Francisco-based vendor now employs 63 people and claims 10 of the world's biggest financial institutions as clients for its identity management technology. Sales for 2014 are expected to be around $14 million.
In 2011, Indian fintech vendor Polaris Software agreed to buy an 85% stake in the company for $20 million. Zions Bancorporation took on the minority interest. Then, in October 2013 Parallax Capital Partners and StepStone Group stepped in and acquired a majority stake for an undisclosed sum.
IdenTrust will keep its brand within Assa Abloy, working with the Swedish conglomerate's HID Global identity unit, which acquired another authentication firm, ActivIDentity, in 2010.
Denis Hébert, head, HID Global, says: "The acquisition of IdenTrust complements the previous acquisition of ActivIdentity and considerably strengthens our HID Global value proposition around secure authentication, providing us with a Trust Framework for issuing, authenticating and using digital identities based on open standards."