July 18, 2007
Biometrics' Cross Match Technologies Files IPO
Florida-baed Cross Match Technologies has registered to IPO on the Nasdaq where it plans to list about 11.8M shares at an estimated price of $14 - $16 per share. It plans to sell 8.3M shares, while stockholders will sell an additional 3.5M shares. It plans to list under the symbol "CROS." The company lists Credit Suisse as the lead underwriter and lists co-managers are UBS, Morgan Stanley, and Raymond James.
Cross Match's revenue has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 33% from 2002 to 2006. For 2006, revenue came in at $76.9M. It claims has more than 80K product units sold to more than 5K customers in 75 countries. The company is 37.94% owned by Smiths Group in the UK.
We see a lot of biometrics companies that sell a single product line, but Cross Match does it all. Cross Match sells biometric reading technologies for systems integrators, governments, law enforcement agencies and businesses. Its products include fingerprint, palm and full-hand scanning devices, Livescan devices, and document readers. It also has proprietary software, such as criminal booking, civil identification and facial recognition applications.
Posted at 11:32 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
March 19, 2007
Biometric's Authentec Files For $86M+ IPO
Authentec has filed for an $86.25M IPO with Lehman Brothers serving as lead underwriter. The Melbourne, FL-based company sells fingerprint sensors for biometric security access to PCs wireless devices, buildings and so forth. Founded in 1998 as a Harris Corp. spinoff, the company employs more than 100 people and has14 different sensors that are used in more than 10M PCs, cell phones and access control devices. Clients include 8 of the top 10 PC manufacturers.
Authentic has never made a profit, losing about $20.9M in the last two years alone. Revenues increased 72.9%, from $19.2M for fiscal 2005 to $33.2M for fiscal 2006.
Authentec has raised $52.5M from VCs.
Investor Pre-IPO stake
Sierra Ventures 21.2%
Harris Corp. 19.1%
Carlyle Venture Partners 13%
Advantage Capital Partners 8.7%
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Posted at 11:10 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
January 24, 2007
Face Recognition Tech Specialist A4 Vision Acquired
Bioscrypt (TSX: BYT), which sells enterprise access control technologies, will acquire VC-backed A4Vision, for an undisclosed amount. We still haven't seen one of these biometrics tools in a work-place but the experts say they are coming. The International Biometrics Group projected that the facial recognition market will represent more than $1.4B or 19% of the total market come 2012. Fingerprint matching is predicted to be 25%.
A4 Vision claims as customers: the US Department of Defense, the US Department of Homeland Security, Pictet bank of Switzerland, New Jersey Transit, and Denver Regional Transit District.
Upon completion of the merger, investors in A4Vision have agreed to invest between $6M and $8M in newly issued Bioscrypt shares and warrants to purchase Bioscrypt common shares. A4Vision investors, including EuroQube SA, In-Q-Tel, Logitech, Menlo Ventures, Motorola Ventures, NTT Leasing., TAKO Ventures, and Wedge International will own, on a fully diluted basis, up to approximately 32% of the pro forma company.
Read - BIOSCRYPT INC. TO ACQUIRE A4VISION AND RECEIVE SUBSTANTIAL NEW INVESTMENT CAPITAL (Press Release)
