NEC acquires Danish IT company KMD to deliver biometrics to public sector
NEC Corporation has acquired Danish IT company KMD, along with its holding company KMD Holding ApS, to accelerate its global safety business, which is a focus of the company’s “Mid-term Management Plan 2020.” The acquisition will also support the “NEC Safer Cities” program, which includes utilization of its advanced biometric and AI technologies for public safety, digital government, and smart transportation applications, according to the announcement.
Private equity investor Advent International will receive 8 billion Danish Kroner (US$1.2 billion) from NEC in the transaction, which is expected to be completed by the end of February 2019.
“Denmark and the United Kingdom are considered European role models for the implementation of unified digital government measures in order to improve administrative services and reduce costs,” said Takashi Niino, President and CEO, NEC Corporation. “Through this acquisition, NEC will acquire a business model that leverages platforms in the digital government domain as it aims to expand business from northern Europe to the whole of Europe and globally.”
KMD provides software and IT services in Denmark with SaaS offerings and other models that generate recurring profit, NEC says. It has broadened its portfolio in a number of key verticals with successfully strategically executed mergers and acquisitions, and has a strong customer base among central and local governments and a wide range of software supporting digitization in Denmark, which ranked at the top of the “UN E-Government Survey 2018.”
“This is an historic moment for KMD. Becoming a part of NEC will give KMD a new and very robust platform for the strategic development of our business. NEC develops cutting-edge technologies and has a global organization with strong capabilities,” said Eva Berneke, CEO, KMD. “NEC is a world-renowned brand and like us has a strong history when it comes to the development of society through technology. NEC focuses on solutions for society and we are proud that NEC acknowledges our competencies in this respect. We look forward to working together on achieving new common goals and making even better products for our customers.”
NEC believes it will benefit from synergy with KMD’s experience and software portfolio for the public sector, which NEC wants to address with its “NEC the WISE” AI technology products and “Bio-IDiom” biometric technologies.
NEC Scandinavia launched a new function for its facial recognition software to remove unmatched or unknown individuals from captured images this week.
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