There are fewer identity companies now.
- It was just announced that SecureAuth is acquiring SessionGuardian.
- Before that, LexisNexis Risk Solutions announced that it is acquiring IDVerse.
And that’s just in the last few days. Many more identity companies acquired new subsidiaries themselves, or were acquired.
I have no idea if these mergers and acquisitions will include layoffs of now-redundant staff, but I do know that one established company let some people go last Friday—only the latest round of layoffs in the last several months.
Why? Identity firms are buffeted by the same issues that beset the rest of tech.
In addition, the “one trick pony” firms in the industry that only support one modality are finding that they cannot provide complete solutions. This is something Steve Craig just addressed on LinkedIn. His key takeaway:
“Document verification has become a feature, not a product”
And if all your company offers is a feature, you’d better broaden your offerings, acquire, be acquired, or die.
We’ve seen this before, when Robert LaPenta acquired a lot of one-trick ponies and forged a multimodal, multi-factor firm that was finally known as L-1 Identity Solutions before it was itself acquired. There were many other acquisitions around the same time, creating a dizzying array of musical chairs.
And in the game of musical chairs, whenever a chair is removed, someone doesn’t have a place to sit.
(Wildebeest musical chairs AI-generated image by Google Gemini)
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