Thoma Bravo taps JPMorgan to sell identity authentication firm Imprivata

Identity authentication and access management company Imprivata may soon be up for sale with an expected sale valuation reaching up to US$7 billion or even more.

Thoma Bravo is reportedly working with JPMorgan and Evercore investment bankers in the early stages. The deal could represent a significant return for the private equity investor, which acquired Imprivata in 2016. The take-private transaction valued the company at $544 million at the time.

The sale is expected to attract interest from corporations and private equity firms. Imprivata currently generates around $500 million in revenue and is growing fast, according to Reuters.

Founded in 2002, Imprivata offers a single sign-on (SSO) solution for the healthcare industry.

In a recent podcast with Biometric Update, Sean Kelly, chief medical officer at Imprivata, argued that healthcare workers are starting to recognize the benefits of biometrics, passkeys and other passwordless options for logging into their systems.

“Healthcare leaders understand that password-heavy workflows are slowing clinicians down and introducing unnecessary risk,” says Kelly.

Still, fewer than 10 percent of healthcare organizations have gone passwordless, according to Imprivata’s research, published in January. Integration and technical challenges still present the biggest barriers but the low penetration of passwordless authentication could potentially mean more opportunities for Imprivata.

Last year, it also purchased identity threat detection response (ITDR) firm Verosint.

Thoma Bravo has other passwordless authentication companies in its portfolio. In 2022, the investor acquired Ping Identity in a transaction valued at approximately $2.8 billion.

In early January, Ping Identity completed the purchase of Zero-Knowledge Biometrics developer Keyless, becoming a part of a growing number of acquisitions in the biometrics industry,

Article Topics

biometrics  |  healthcare  |  Imprivata  |  JPMorgan  |  passwordless authentication  |  single sign-on  |  Thoma Bravo