UK-based identity verification and fraud prevention solutions provider GBG on Thursday announced that it has agreed to acquire Acuant in a $736 million deal.
Acuant is based in California and it specializes in identity verification and Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance. The acquisition, which is expected to close by the end of the month, will help GBG further expand into the United States.
GBG says Acuant’s product suite complements the services provided by its US-based subsidiary IDology.
The combined company has a revenue of roughly £265 million ($355 million), and more than 25,000 enterprise customers around the world.
When announcing the deal, the companies pointed out that the global identity verification market is projected to reach $15.8 billion and the identity fraud market is projected to be worth $9.6 billion by 2025.
Acuant has developed a trusted identity platform that provides a wide range of capabilities, including data capture, identity document authentication, facial recognition matching, anti-money laundering, know your customer, know your business, sanctions screening, transaction monitoring, and dark web checks.
“The US is the largest and most strategic market for location, identity and fraud services,” said Chris Clark, CEO at GBG. “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. 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.”
Earlier this year, Acuant announced the acquisition of UK-based identity verification and KYC solutions provider Hello Soda.
Related: TransUnion Acquires Identity Security Company Sontiq for $638 Million
Related: Mastercard Acquires Digital Identity Verification Firm Ekata for $850 Million
Related: CyberArk Acquires Identity as a Service Provider Idaptive for $70 Million
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
Tags: https://www.securityweek.com/gbg-acquire-acuant-736-million-deal