IDEX appoints Pareto as adviser to secure strategic partner
IDEX ASA has appointed Pareto Securities AS as financial advisor to assist in evaluating potential strategic industry partners in order to fully exploit the potential of IDEX’s ground breaking SmartFinger® technology and products in the fast expanding global market for biometric ID and data protection. In order to cement such a strategic alliance IDEX is willing to offer a suitable partner an equity stake in IDEX through a capital injection.
IDEX’ award-winning SmartFinger Film technology has already attracted substantial interest from a broad range of industrial players. The SmartFinger Film fingerprint sensor is ultra-thin, bendable and ideal for inclusion in a range of biometric cards, mobile phone security, biometric key-fobs and other on-device biometric products.
IDEX possesses leading edge technology for high-volume consumer applications in personal data protection that is on the cusp of taking off on an accelerated growth trajectory in several mass markets applications.
“Pareto’s investment banking expertise and international network will add traction to our process to identify a suitable strategic partner,” said Ralph W. Bernstein, CEO of IDEX ASA.
“A partner with the right go-to-market know how, supply-chain expertise and manufacturing capabilities will help IDEX transform today’s pilot products to mass volume production,” said Bernstein. “We are working intensively with our customers and supply-chain partners in order to establish high-volume products with IDEX SmartFinger technology inside. With the huge potential presently in biometric smart-cards and ID cards, mobile phones and in the emerging vision of the Internet of Things, we seek to accelerate this process to take advantage of the quickening pace in developments in biometric data protection.”
In order to secure a transformational strategic partner IDEX will be willing to offer a suitable partner a strategic stake in IDEX through a capital injection.
IDEX has cooperation agreements with several fingerprint device and card companies, such as Pierson Capital Technology, Identita Technologies, Shen were show-cased by Card Tech and S.I.C. Biometrics at the IDEX booth at CARTES 2011 in November represent the first end user projects with tangible ‘market ready’ applications.
In 2011, IDEX entered into a partner agreement with Future Electronics for the co-development, sales and marketing of a fingerprint biometric authentication module based on the SmartFinger Film fingerprint sensor and biometric algorithms.
IDEX participates in the eGo project with twelve European R&D and industrial partners, such as Gemalto, STMicroelectronics, Precise Biometrics and Atos Worldline. eGo is part of and funded via the EUREKA programme CATRENE (Cluster for Application and Technology Research in Europe on Nano Electronics). IDEX and its partner UINT has recently received funding from EU and national governments for developing a biometric smartcard for contactless payment applications.
6 February 2012
IDEX ASA
Press contact IDEX ASA:
Ralph W. Bernstein, CEO, +47 9305 9303, ralph.bernstein@idexbiometrics.com
Pareto Securities AS:
+47 2287 8700, info@pareto.no
About IDEX ASA
IDEX ASA is a Norwegian research and development company specializing in fingerprint imaging and recognition technology. IDEX’ vision is to ensure individuals a safe, secure, and user-friendly use of personal ID. IDEX has developed the award-winning SmartFinger Film technology platform comprising Idex’s patented fingerprint imaging principle, sensing scheme and chip design. The SmartFinger technology is available to customers under an intellectual property licensing scheme or as SmartFinger Film sensor assemblies for integration into customers’ products. For more information, please visit www.idexbiometrics.com or contact IDEX at: mailbox@idexbiometrics.com
