Unico adds OwnID’s passkey business to its portfolio, enters US market

Unico has acquired the passkey business from OwnID, which offers decentralized passwordless authentication. The move is a step in Unico’s ambition to become a leading identity network and marks its formal entry into the U.S. market.

With the acquisition Unico will offer a fuller suite of identity solutions, combining its proprietary platforms of IDCloud, for secure verification, and IDPay, for online purchase validation, with OwnID’s passkey technology.

“We are very confident in incorporating OwnID’s top-notch technical team and opening our first hub in the ‘startup nation’ — Israel,” says Diego Martins, founder and CEO of Unico. OwnID is headquartered in San Francisco with research and development operations in Tel Aviv, Israel, and adds a technical team and authentication technology to Unico’s growing portfolio.

The integration aims to eliminate password vulnerabilities and streamline digital identity usage across industries including banking, fintech, retail, travel and insurance.

Unico’s expansion into the U.S. also brings high-profile clients into its fold, including the International Olympic Committee, Bayer, Carrefour, Michael Kors, Nestlé and the NFL. The company’s boosted capabilities will help protect against emerging threats such as deepfakes and injection attacks.

Over its 18-year history, Unico has completed nine strategic acquisitions, including Trully and Oz Forensics in 2024. Martins confirmed the company is actively exploring further opportunities in Asia, with a focus on Indonesia and Singapore, as well as Nigeria, as part of its global growth strategy and continued investment in proprietary technologies.

“We are excited to add OwnID’s talent to our team, as well as its technology to our ecosystem and to Unico’s well-known network effect,” says Marcelo Zanelatto, Head of Mergers and Acquisitions at Unico. “With this, we are creating a new global authentication standard.”

Co-founder and president at OwnID, Rooly Eliezerov, who will also join Unico’s team, commented: “OwnID’s mission is to empower businesses by providing their customers with a simple and secure passwordless experience.”

“By joining Unico, we are taking this purpose to a new level, adding identity verification and resilient security layers against the latest and most sophisticated attacks on the market,” he continued. “We are also very excited about the opportunity to scale our technology to hundreds of millions of people.”

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital identity  |  OwnID  |  passkeys  |  passwordless authentication  |  Unico