News

Audax Private Equity has acquired a controlling stake in Los Angeles-based Acuant, a provider of identity verification solutions. No financial terms were disclosed. The sellers were Insight Venture Partners, Lightview Capital and Egis Capital Partners. Robert W. Baird was financial adviser to Acuant on the deal.

PRESS RELEASE

BOSTON & LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Audax Private Equity today announced it has completed an investment in Acuant to support the continued growth initiatives of the company as a global provider of identity verification solutions. Audax acquired a controlling interest in Acuant from Insight Venture Partners, Lightview Capital and Egis Capital Partners.

Acuant’s award-winning Identity Platform empowers businesses and consumers to transact with trust. The company believes that identity is the new currency and it should belong to the individual, who may choose when and how to share their personally identifying information or PII. This must be balanced with the fact that the need for strong, customer-friendly identity proofing solutions has never been greater. As PII is increasingly at risk, Acuant serves to find a way to create trusted transactions that put individuals at ease and in control, while simultaneously allowing businesses to address their appropriate level of risk.

Yossi Zekri, President and CEO of Acuant, said, “We selected Audax because they share our vision and commitment to creating frictionless, trusted transactions that protect businesses from unnecessary risk. By bringing on Audax as an investment partner, we now have what we believe are the strategic resources to dramatically accelerate Acuant’s growth. With Audax on board, we plan to accelerate expansion into new product lines while continuing to innovate within our current product portfolio.”

Thus far in 2018, Acuant has exceeded its own record for profitability and sales growth and has expanded its presence with an EU office. The company also added several premier global partners, including a top credit reporting agency, as well as a top-tier global payments company and a leading healthcare diagnostics company.

Geoffrey S. Rehnert, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Audax Group, said, “Acuant offers a best-in-class product suite that addresses rising transactional fraud in the digital economy. We believe the company is strongly positioned for continued growth as organizations seek solutions to reduce risk, increase revenue and meet compliance objectives. We look forward to supporting Yossi and the entire Acuant team to continue growing the business organically and through acquisitions.”

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Robert W. Baird acted as exclusive financial advisor and Goodwin Procter LLP served as legal counsel to Acuant, Insight Venture Partners, and Lightview Capital. Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as counsel to Audax.

About Acuant
Acuant is an identity verification platform that reduces fraud while providing a seamless customer experience. Acuant’s products are award-winning, multi-platform solutions, deployable via web services (cloud), mobile, and desktop applications. Core products include intelligent data capture and auto-fill software, and identity document authentication with some of the industry’s highest speed and accuracy rates. Acuant also offers Chip and e-Passport authentication with PKI, facial recognition software, and expert manual review of documents to help ensure the highest level of security.

Holding more than 20 patents and powered by human-assisted machine learning, Acuant possesses one of the industry’s largest ID libraries, and has completed more than 3 billion transactions worldwide. Partners include start-ups, Fortune 500 and FTSE 350 organizations in various industries including Finance, Government, Healthcare, Security/IAM, Sharing Economy, and Travel. For more information, please visit www.acuantcorp.com.

About Audax Private Equity
Audax Private Equity has been focused on building leading middle market companies since its founding in 1999. Audax has invested $5 billion in 117 platform and 700 add-on companies. Through its disciplined Buy & Build approach, Audax seeks to help platform companies execute add-on acquisitions that fuel revenue growth, optimize operations, and significantly increase equity value. Audax Group is an alternative asset management firm specializing in investments in middle market companies. With offices in Boston, New York, and San Francisco, Audax Group has $13 billion in assets under management across its Private Equity, Mezzanine, and Senior Debt businesses. For more information, visit the Audax Group website www.audaxgroup.com.