Digital Identity Firm GBG Acquires Acuant For $736M

The digital identity firm GBG has reached an agreement to acquire the identify verification provider Acuant in a cash-free, debt-free $736 million deal that brings together two leaders in the global digital identity sector. 

“A long-time partner, Acuant has a product suite that is a natural complement to GBG’s existing US-based services from IDology,” the London-based GBG said in a news release Friday (Nov. 19). “The acquisition creates a leader in the strategically important North American market and accelerates the rollout of GBG’s identity and fraud solutions globally.” 

The companies say the combined product portfolio will create a technology platform that can support both firms’ network of partners and customers, managing billions of global transactions across several different sectors. 

“The U.S. is the largest and most strategic market for location, identity and fraud services,” said Chris Clark, GBG’s CEO. 

“The combination of GBG and Acuant provides a step-change in this market, increasing scale, growing our customer base and introducing us to new and exciting sectors,” Clark said. “As importantly, it also strengthens the breadth of our technology portfolio which we can use to support our current customers in new ways in growth geographies such as APAC and Europe, where we already have a strong footprint.” 

Acuant employs more than 200 digital IDV professionals and has more than 1,000 customers, with nearly half of revenues coming from Acuant’s channel partner network. The acquisition is expected to complete all necessary regulatory and legal steps by the end of this month. 

Read more: Digital IDs Build Anchors Of Trust Between FIs And All Consumers 

In an interview with PYMNTS in June, Acuant CEO Yossi Zerki spoke of the importance of building trust between financial institutions and the customers who trust whose companies with their identities. 

Costumers want to know if their data is being stored, and if so, how it might be stored, whether they’re opening a bank account or taking out a mortgage. And they want a mechanism, ideally something they can hold in their hand, that lets them control how their identities are shared, who they are shared with. 

“Consumers should be able to trust those to whom we give the keys to our identity,” he said.