Lightview Capital announced today that it has sold Acuant, an industry-leading provider of identity verification solutions, to Audax Private Equity.
Acuant’s empowers its customers to transact with trust. Acuant’s award winning platform, which leverages the industry’s largest identity document library and 20+ patents, automates data capture and enables real-time identity verification. Headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in New Hampshire and Israel, the company serves a diverse base of blue-chip customers across several verticals including Healthcare and Financial Services.
Rich Erickson, Managing Director at Lightview Capital commented “Acuant’s business has rapidly evolved during its partnership with Lightview, transforming from a bootstrapped company focused on identity data capture to becoming the leading provider of identity validation and authentication solutions powered by a robust SaaS offering.”
Since 2013, when Lightview Capital along with its co-investors, bought majority control of Acuant, the company has more than doubled revenue and profitability. Conor Mullett, Managing Director at Lightview, added: “The company operates in a multi-billion dollar, highly fragmented industry. Enhancing Acuant’s ability to scale and supporting M&A with two highly strategic acquisitions in the past several years was critical to our value creation strategy.”
Yossi Zekri, Acuant CEO, commented, “Under Lightview’s stewardship, Acuant developed into a global leader well-positioned for continuous growth. We have thoroughly enjoyed our collaborative partnership with Lightview and are grateful for their contributions and support.”
The investment in Acuant is consistent with Lightview’s strategy of investing in bootstrapped, profitable, technology driven business services companies with strong recurring revenue that provide value to customers by leveraging specialized domain expertise, technology and data.
Lightview’s investment partners were Insight Venture Partners and Egis Capital Partners.
About Lightview Capital
Lightview Capital is a leading private equity firm focused on technology and business services sectors in the lower middle market. Lightview provides its portfolio companies deep industry knowledge, insightful experience, and active resources to unlock growth and drive value. Lightview Capital’s approachable investment style combines deep operational and financial experience with an entrepreneurial spirit that delivers measurable results.
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 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 the industry’s largest ID library, and has completed more than 3 billion transactions worldwide. Partners include startups, Fortune 500 and FTSE 350 organizations in various industries including Finance, Government, Healthcare, Security/IAM, Sharing Economy, and Travel. For more information, please visit acuantcorp.com.