BIO-key acquires Swivel Secure Europe to expand channel partnerships and customer base within EMEA
BIO-key announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Swivel Secure Europe, a privately-held IAM solutions provider based in Madrid, Spain serving the European, Middle East and African (EMEA) markets.
The transaction is expected to close in February and be accretive to BIO-key’s earnings, excluding one-time acquisition-related costs and ongoing purchase accounting amortization expenses. On a preliminary unaudited basis, SSE generated over $3.1M in revenue and $578K in operating income in fiscal/calendar 2021.
As a result of the acquisition, BIO-key will add a sales and support team with extensive customer and industry contacts throughout the EMEA region. Alex Rocha, SSE’s sole stockholder and Chief Executive Officer, will also assume responsibility for EMEA operations reporting directly to BIO-key’s Chairman & CEO.
The acquisition will also expand BIO-key’s thriving Channel Alliance Partner (CAP) program by adding SSE’s technology partnerships with SAP, SailPoint and Red Hat, as well as global reseller partners Arrow, Deloitte, Accenture, Logicalis, IBM, Telefonica and Wipro. These partners are highly-experienced in the benefits and uses of multi -factor authentication (MFA) and can offer valuable guidance on how customers can leverage BIO-key’s solutions.
“Swivel Secure Europe and its talented team have established a deep network of partners and customers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and this acquisition significantly strengthens BIO-key’s presence in those regions,” said BIO-key Chairman & CEO Michael DePasquale. “We are seeing cyber attacks and threats grow in sophistication and scale and as a result, demand for proven IAM solutions continues to grow. We look forward to expanding our global sales footprint and to supporting Swivel Secure Europe’s customers and partners through an award-winning and cost-effective portfolio of existing and new IAM and identity-bound biometric solutions.”
“BIO-key is a respected leader in identity and access management and civil identification in the North America, Africa and Asia,” said Mr. Rocha. “We’re excited to bring our team, customers and partners to join BIO-key in helping expand its worldwide footprint. We have longstanding relationships with many customers and believe that this combination will deliver improved capabilities and service levels for customers globally.”
BIO-key, through SSE, will be the exclusive distributor of Swivel Secure products throughout EMEA and will assume relationships with more than 300 customers spanning highly-complementary markets including education, government, banking, finance, healthcare and manufacturing. The need for multi-factor authentication (MFA) is significant in EMEA, where enterprises require the ability to fully control and monitor secure access by employees, students, customers and partners.
SSE’s customers will be able to leverage the full portfolio of award-winning products including AuthControl Sentry, AuthControl Enterprise and AuthControl MSP as well as BIO-key’s full line of software and hardware solutions.