LexisNexis Risk Solutions to Acquire AI Identity Verification Firm IDVerse

LexisNexis Risk Solutions has announced plans to acquire IDVerse, an AI-powered identity verification and document authentication company. The acquisition will integrate IDVerse into LexisNexis Risk Solutions Business Services division, which operates as part of RELX, continuing the company’s strategic expansion in digital identity verification that began with its £580 million acquisition of ThreatMetrix in 2018.

Founded in Australia and launched commercially in 2018, IDVerse provides automated document authentication and fraud detection solutions powered by artificial intelligence. The company’s technology can verify more than 16,000 types of identity documents globally and uses biometric algorithms for identity verification and liveness detection to combat fraud and deepfakes. The company recently demonstrated its capabilities through a partnership with the London Stock Exchange Group to prevent deepfake deception in financial services.

The two companies already maintain an existing relationship, with IDVerse’s solutions currently available through LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ platform via a pre-existing alliance agreement. The acquisition is expected to close in early 2025, pending regulatory approvals.

“AI-powered solutions are necessary to counter the threat of AI-generated fraud attacks, including deepfakes,” said Rick Trainor, CEO of Business Services at LexisNexis Risk Solutions. “Integrating IDVerse’s advanced and complementary technology will further enhance our ability to provide the risk insights our clients need.”

The acquisition follows LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ pattern of strengthening its fraud prevention capabilities, including its acquisition of behavioral biometrics company BehavioSec to enhance its ThreatMetrix platform.

“LexisNexis Risk Solutions has been at the forefront of enabling compliance and lowering risk for businesses worldwide for decades,” noted IDVerse CEO John Myers. “We’re looking forward to seeing the impact our combined solutions and technology can make.”

Julie Conroy, Chief Insights Officer at Datos Insights, highlighted the importance of AI in combating fraud: “Crime rings have been steadily increasing their use of sophisticated automation and AI in their attacks for years, which hinders many of the traditional risk controls. It takes AI to fight AI.” Conroy’s observation is consistent with findings from LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ own cybercrime reports, which have documented the rising threat of automated attacks.

The integration aims to enhance fraud prevention capabilities by combining IDVerse’s AI technology with LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ existing document authentication offerings. The merger will expand global document authentication capabilities and implement self-learning AI that automatically updates fraud models to respond to new schemes.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions has a history of strategic acquisitions, including ThreatMetrix in 2018 and Lumen in 2019. IDVerse, formerly known as OCR Labs, rebranded in 2023 and operates from offices in London, Silicon Valley, and Sydney, focusing on identity verification and fraud protection using generative AI technologies. The company recently expanded its reach by making its solutions available on the AWS Marketplace.

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December 10, 2024 – by the ID Tech Editorial Team