Fingerprint Cards Goes Multimodal, Announces Delta ID Acquisition

“In a statement announcing the acquisition, FPC CEO Christian Fredrikson said it would enable the company ‘to provide multi-modal solutions to the market, combining iris recognition with our fingerprint sensors.'”

Fingerprint Cards is buying iris recognition specialist Delta ID for SEK 938 million, or a little under $107 million USD.

The deal represents a considerable expansion of FPC’s reach in the global biometrics market. The Swedish company’s leading position in the fingerprint sensor market is well-established; Silicon Valley-based Delta ID, meanwhile, developed the iris biometrics technology used in the world’s first iris-scanning smartphone, and now counts among its customers big names like Samsung and HP. Its technology has also been certified for use with Aadhaar, India’s massive biometric national ID program.

In a statement announcing the acquisition, FPC CEO Christian Fredrikson said it would enable the company “to provide multi-modal solutions to the market, combining iris recognition with our fingerprint sensors.” Delta ID CEO Dr. Salil Prabhakar added that the “potential synergies are obvious.”

The deal arrives after a certain amount of speculation that followed in the wake of Fredrikson’s comments last September that FPC could accelerate its growth with acquisitions, and it arrives just ahead of FPC’s year-end business report, scheduled for tomorrow.

The acquisition is expected to be finalized in the spring of this year.

(Originally posted on FindBiometrics)