dormakaba splurges to expand biometric access control market reach

Swiss biometrics and access control provider dormakaba has made a strategic investment in U.S.-based physical access control company SwiftConnect. The move is the latest in a series of investments from dormakaba that expand its market reach, particularly in the U.S.

The investment follows dormakaba’s acquisition of Autralia’s Vintech, which serves the hospitality industry across the South Pacific region, and of Indiana’s Avant-Garde Systems in December, expanding the acquiring company’s direct solution approach. Avant-Garde is one of the largest independent entrance control systems providers in the U.S., the companies said at the time.

“dormakaba is doing in APAC what they’ve already done in North America,” said Lee Odess, CEO of The Access Control Collective, on his Secured podcast. “They’re buying established service providers who’ve already cracked the hospitality code.”

Those deals followed weeks after a strategic minority investment in biometric camera maker RealSense, which had just completed its spin-out from Intel.

Even more recently, dormakaba has also acquired Munich-based digital experience platform any2any to improve user experience.

Cash for these deals is easier for dormakaba to find following a year in which its organic net sales rose 2 percent, its margin improved, and a transformation plan delivered savings ahead of schedule, as Odess pointed out in a recent LinkedIn post.

Connecticut-headquartered SwiftConnect automates manual workflows and connects existing access control systems with identity providers and IT systems to create an open and unified network, according to the announcement.

“With our investment in SwiftConnect, we are focusing on openness and compatibility as key success factors in the access management of the future,” says dormakaba CEO Til Reuter. “SwiftConnect’s platform addresses a structural need in the access management market and has great growth potential. We share the common goal of providing customers with access to the most advanced, user-friendly, and secure access technology.“

The amount invested in SwiftConnect and dormakaba’s prior deals was not disclosed.

Reuter said in December that the Avant-Garde deal will help dormakaba grow its market share in airports and data centers, which he identified as key verticals for the company.

Biometric access control market impact

Odess told Biometric Update in an email that biometrics are not becoming core infrastructure for access control, but are gaining traction in the enterprise, and particularly in the financial services sector.

Goode Intelligence CEO and Chief Analyst Alan Goode sees the shift slightly differently.

“It is a sign that biometrics has become an essential tool for physical access control, backing up Goode Intelligence’s analysis that the market is poised for growth with a forecast revenue of $16.31 billion globally by 2031,” Goode wrote in an email. “The use of biometrics for physical access control is increasing around the world creating solutions that are more secure and friction-less. Biometric technology is either being used to augment existing physical access control systems by becoming a strong second factor, card plus biometric for instance, or as a sole factor – no card or token just you.”

Biometrics are still yet to find mass adoption for access control outside of the high security industry, which Odess estimates is one-seventh as large as the mainstream market ($10 billion compared with $70 billion).

This is because of what Odess refers to in a recent edition of his Access Control Executive Brief as “a story problem” in the biometrics industry. “The dystopian side has narrative discipline. The utopian side has spec sheets,” he says.

Odess proposes a distinction between human-first biometrics and system-first biometrics, with the former the domain of user control, the latter where fears of surveillance and data misuse belong.

Article Topics

access control  |  acquisitions  |  biometrics  |  dormakaba  |  Goode Intelligence  |  Lee Odess  |  RealSense  |  SwiftConnect