Mitek Acquires HooYu in GBP 98M Deal

The biometrics industry’s latest major M&A transaction has arrived: San Diego-based Mitek has bought London’s HooYu in an all-cash transaction valued at GBP 98 million, or about $129.2 million USD.

Both companies specialize in the kind of selfie-based onboarding technology that has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years, using facial recognition to match an end user’s face image to pictures of their official photo ID. But a statement announcing the acquisition explained that combining these and secondary technologies would deliver a more comprehensive user identification solution.

“Through this acquisition, organizations gain a more complete picture of the consumer by marrying biometrics, ID document validation, geolocation and identity confidence scoring with real-time data signals such as bureau checks or matches to politically exposed person or sanction lists,” the companies asserted, adding that HooYu’s orchestration capabilities would be leveraged to help Mitek customers optimize workflows and accelerate deployments of its identity technology.

The development offers the latest signal of consolidation in the burgeoning biometrics and identity security industries. This month alone has seen the announcements of Plurilock’s acquisition of Integra and SALTO Systems’ acquisition of Cognitec, and the completion of Microsoft’s headline-grabbing acquisition of Nuance Communications.

For Mitek’s part, this isn’t even the company’s first acquisition. It also bought face and voice recognition specialist ID R&D last year. Booming business is helping to fund these purchases, with Mitek having reported a 25 percent year-over-year increase in revenues in its most recent corporate update.

In its latest announcement, Mitek CEO Max Carnecchia characterized both acquisitions as demonstrations of his firm’s “commitment to fighting fraud”, adding, “We deeply respect HooYu’s heritage as a UK-founded technology company, operating in the global financial services hub, and one of the most highly regulated markets.”

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Mar. 24, 2022 – by Alex Perala