“The acquisition,” said Accumuli in a statement yesterday, “is in line with Accumuli’s strategy of helping customers secure their business through a combination of technology, professional services and managed services. Signify fits closely with the company’s existing portfolio and adds capability in 2FA. This synergy will allow Accumuli to promote and cross-sell Signify’s authentication services to its wider client base and vice versa.”
2FA is considered a growth area given the rise of BYOD and remote working. Companies need a method of securing remote access to corporate servers that is more secure than traditional passwords alone, and Signify has specialized in this technology for more than 13 years. “Given the growing mobility of today's workforce,” explained Accumuli’s CEO Gavin Lyons, “it is becoming increasingly important for all organizations to secure remote access to systems and information. Adding 2FA managed services to our established portfolio of IT security solutions represents the next logical step in our value proposition to help customers secure their business and reduce operating costs.”
Signify offers a cloud-based hosted service, allowing customers to choose between the use of an RSA SecurID hardware token device, a software token via smartphone apps for tokenless authentication, or tokenless via email or SMS with Signify Passcode OnDemand. Since it is a managed service, revenue is recurring, and customer churn historically low – making it a particularly attractive purchase for Accumuli (itself a managed security services provider).
Signify also brings more than 250 customers from technology and telecoms, through manufacturing and legal, to the public sector and healthcare. “Signify is a business with a long and successful history in the provision of 2FA managed services,” said Lyons; “they have an outstanding reputation for delivering a secure, reliable and flexible solution. The 2FA managed security offering complements Accumuli's market leading security portfolio and we now have the opportunity to provide additional solutions and services to Signify's existing 250 customers.”
According to theWall Street Journal, Signify generated GBP0.56 million EBITDA (Earnings before interest, tax and depreciation) on revenues of GBP2.9 million and gross profit of GBP2.3 million in the year ending 31 March 2013. It employs 23 people at its offices in Histon, Cambridge; and the managed service nature of the business means that 77% of its revenues, and 88% of its gross profit, is attributable to recurring revenues. Dave Abraham, CEO and significant shareholder of Signify, will remain with the business on a consultancy basis to assist with the transition. All remaining staff will transfer to Accumuli but remain in position after completion of the acquisition.