Aussie-born ThreatMetrix sold for over $1bn

Australian-born fraud detection start-up ThreatMetrix has sealed a deal to sell the company to UK information and analytics company RELX Group for £580 million ($1.02 billion) in cash.

ThreatMetrix was founded in Australia in 2005 by Australians Alisdair Faulkner and David Jones, and was subsequently relocated to California. The company develops and provides risk-based authentication technology.

The ThreatMetrix Digital Identity Network analyses over 100 million transactions per day across 35,000 websites from 5000 customers.

This makes it it one of the largest repositories of online digital identities in the world with roughly 1.4 billion unique online identities from 4.5 billion devices in 185 countries.

RELX Group has revealed plans to incorporate ThreatMetrix into its Risk and Business Analytics division, operator of the LexisNexis Risk Solutions brand. LexisNexis Risk Solutions already has an established relationship with ThreatMetrix, offering its device intelligence solutions as part of the LexisNexis Risk Defense Platform.

“ThreatMetrix is widely recognised as a leader in the digital identity space. Bringing that together with our own strengths in physical identity attributes will give our clients across all forms of commerce and geographies a more reliable, comprehensive approach to fraud and identity risk management while maintaining the privacy and security principles our customers have come to expect,” Risk and Business Analytics CEO Mark Kelsey said.

“The acquisition is in line with our organic growth-driven strategy, supported by acquisitions of targeted datasets and analytics that are natural additions to our existing business.”

Pending approvals the acquisition is expected to close in the first half of the year.

Graphic courtesy ThreatMetrix.

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