Big; bigger; biggest: IN Groupe CEO plots course with more digital ID tools

The completed acquisition of Idemia Smart Identity by IN Groupe earlier this month is the latest in a series of transactions that have consolidated the upper echelon of companies developing biometrics and digital identity technologies. Toppan struck a deal to acquire HID’s Citizen Identity in October, and DNP acquired a majority stake in Laxton just weeks ago.

The latest deal represents a “major milestone” and creates “the number one actor in the industry, a leader in secure physical and digital identity solutions” IN Groupe CEO Agnès Diallo tells Biometric Update in an interview, days after the deal was closed.

Adding Idemia Smart Identity’s team, technology and business may make IN Groupe the world’s biggest player in digital identity. IN Groupe’s annual sales are $500 million, and Idemia Smart Identity’s are around $500 to $600 million, so combined they total over a billion dollars in revenue.

Each of the now-combined entities is a major incumbent supplier of IDs, active in several geographical areas around the world, and based in France. Diallo explained the deal’s benefits in terms of their common vision for enabling organizations to improve people’s lives through ID, and how the strengths of the respective companies in technology and market reach compliment each other, and how the resulting comprehensive portfolio allows the expanded IN Groupe to better deliver on it.

Chips complete the puzzle

On the technology side, Diallo says Idemia gives IN Groupe “technological mastery of chips and software components that are key to what we do.”

That mastery of chips includes the IP behind biometric chips Idemia Smart Identity has supplied its customers, as well as the manufacturing capacity. That gives IN Groupe the efficiencies of end-to-end control and completes its portfolio of physical and digital ID offerings.

But “there’s another angle from which it’s important,” Diallo says. “For a lot of our clients, especially after the chip supply crisis we went through from 2020 to 2022, alongside COVID, our customers became very sensitive to the supply chain, and to the ability that we have to provide a secured supply of that particular component. Now that we’re integrating that know-how from Idemia Smart Identity, I think it’s going to make a big difference for our customers.”

The complementary capabilities of Idemia and IN Groupe provide customers a wide range of options and functionalities in-house.

“By enriching our portfolio with more technologies we’re actually bringing increased value and increased opportunity,” Diallo says, resulting in “more capabilities for clients, and more options for our industry.”

Feedback from customers highlights the importance of a portfolio that allows the flexibility of choice for adherence to privacy standards like GDPR, as well as data protection and national sovereignty. “We’re going to be offering states and private sector organizations options that allow them to maintain control over their data, their critical infrastructure,” Diallo says.

“Our clients are telling me, the ecosystem is telling me that there is a need for such a player.”

Growing the top line

The acquisition is about increasing IN Groupe’s revenue, rather than finding cost efficiencies, Diallo says.

The first focus is Europe and the company’s traditional markets, where Diallo sees numerous opportunities now and in the near future. The EUDI Wallet is prominent among them, and the combined company is participating in several EU consortiums for large-scale pilots, including Potential, APTITUDE and eFTI4EU.

“As we grow stronger through the new entity, I think we’ll be bringing a stronger voice to the table in support of the ecosystem,” Diallo says.

Regional growth areas going forward include Africa and Latin America, which are important for the company’s strategy “because that’s where we see large engines for the ‘phygital’ opportunity.” Diallo says that “as we come together, we increase our client roster and our references in those geographies.  And so we become even more credible for the larger set of governments that I’d like us to serve.”

The companies have a “complimentary footprint” in the different national and regional markets they address, as well as technology, she says. The combined entity now serves one out of two governments in Africa, whether with biometrics or ID system components or a full technology stack.

IN Groupe plans to use its broader foundations “to support the very dynamic ecosystems that are already developing” on the continent. Diallo recounts a recent visit to Africa, saying, “I was struck by the dynamism of the investments in the startup economy there.”

Africa is still home to half of the people in the world who cannot legally prove who they are, and Diallo compares the opportunity for legal and digital identity there to how nations leapfrogged a wired infrastructure deficit with mobile telecom services. “We see those geographical areas as areas where want to focus and get our clients to know who we are and build the ecosystem’s awareness of what we’re doing,” she says.

The acquisition also gives IN Groupe an opportunity to use the root of trust it helps create for governments to bring more value to the private sector, according to Diallo.

The company currently delivers professional identity for doctors and health care workers in France, for example, and for construction sector in Sweden, “so we already have a standing and an ability to deliver for private professions,” Diallo says.

These practical uses highlight the importance of interoperability, Diallo points out; “and it’s a real challenge to build,” she adds. Hence the importance of standards.

The standards enable governments to “build modular systems where your civil registry will speak to your national identity will speak to your digital identity in a way that’s fluid,” Diallo says, “and your interfaces work for you, as a country, rather than your vendors.”

That also means the moment is ripe for an identity provider that can deliver on that promise, and Diallo suggests the acquisition makes IN Groupe that company.

Shortly before the interview, the company had held a corporate event which brought the four thousand “IN Groupers, old and new,” as Diallo calls them with a smile, together. “There was so much energy in the room,” she says, “and great momentum because I think our teams understand that the future is bright and we have a contribution to make in shaping the future of identity.”

For those in public and private sector “to whom industrial mastery matters, to whom cutting edge technology matters, to whom sovereignty matters and who are looking for the right answer to address these challenges for their citizens or for their staff,” Diallo says, “we’re building the leader in our industry in the world to better support you.”

Article Topics

acquisitions  |  biometrics  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  Idemia Smart Identity  |  IN Groupe