Thales Further Accelerates Its Cybersecurity Development With the Acquisition of OneWelcome, a Leader in Customer Identity and Access Management

• Headquartered in the Netherlands, OneWelcome is a European leader in Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM), an essential and high-demanded expertise within the cybersecurity market.
• OneWelcome’s identity cloud for external users, like consumers, business partners and contractors complement Thales’ workforce Identity and Access management capabilities and specifically addresses key areas such as data privacy, delegation and consent management.
• This acquisition is a new step in Thales’ strategy¹ to further strengthen its leading position as a global cybersecurity player, and a leading provider of secure and trusted digital identities.

PARIS LA DÉFENSE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Continuing its cybersecurity expansion strategy, Thales announces the signature of an agreement to acquire OneWelcome, a European leader in the fast growing market of Customer Identity and Access Management, for a total consideration of €100 million. OneWelcome’s strong digital identity lifecycle management capabilities will complement Thales’s existing Identity services (secure credential enrollment, issuance and management, Know Your Customer etc) in order to offer the most comprehensive Identity Platform in the market.

Headquartered in the Netherlands, OneWelcome provides cloud-based customer identity and access management for highly regulated industries, empowering them to securely connect customers as well as business partners to their online services. Currently, OneWelcome protects tens of millions of European identities for lighthouse customers like Malakoff Humanis, PostNL and the European Central Bank. Thales plans to leverage this regional expertise to address the global need for enhanced identity and data privacy management.

Indeed, OneWelcome business will particularly address the increasing need for convenient and secure access, as well as data privacy, which is essential in regulated markets, subject to GDPR compliance for instance. To be noted that one of the key OneWelcome’s expertise is to grant users a greater control of their information and data, across any platform or application as it helps manage their passwords and consent preferences.

With this acquisition, Thales will offer a comprehensive Identity Platform that will allow organisations of all sizes to manage internal and external identities, enabling them to bring new businesses online fast, improving operational efficiency and customer experience along the way, while meeting or exceeding regulatory compliance.

With 100+ employees and customers across Europe, OneWelcome is experiencing strong growth of over 30% year-on-year. OneWelcome will join Thales Digital Identity and Security global business unit. Gartner predicts that by 2023², 72% of organisations will be rolling out a CIAM initiative, versus 40% in 2020.

Danny de Vreeze CEO of OneWelcome said: “Customer Identity – or CIAM – is a solution tailored for any organisation with a digital presence that need to securely manage external identities and provide intuitive access to their online services. We have a state-of-the-art service that is used by European customers to connect and protect millions of users. Our highly motivated team is thrilled to expand our product leadership into new markets using the global reach of Thales.”

Philippe Vallée, Executive Vice-President, Digital Identity and Security at Thales said: “The acquisition of OneWelcome is fully aligned with our expansion strategy within the cybersecurity space. OneWelcome’s talents and expertise in customer identity and access management complements and strengthens our authentication and data privacy portfolio as well as our plan to provide a trusted and frictionless digital experience. Nowadays, as we see a rapid increase in amount of data, cloud migrations, and new compliance mandates, it’s essential to offer secure, adaptive and convenient solutions that help our customers in both private and public sector to classify, protect, and control the access to their sensitive data regardless of where it resides.”

In 2022, Thales plans to hire 11,000 people worldwide, including 1,000 in cybersecurity.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed during the second half of 2022.

¹Thales recently announced another acquisition in the cybersecurity domain: https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/worldwide/group/press_release/thales-signs-agreement-sonae-investment-management-acquire-s21sec-and.

² Gartner – Technology Insight for CIAM May 2020 IAM

About Thales & Cybersecurity

Thales's cybersecurity expertise is aimed at private companies as well as public authorities and Operators of Vital Importance. The group's cyber activities represent more than € 1 billion in turnover and address the entire cybersecurity value chain ranging from:

• protection and encryption of data and networks, secure access management;
• solutions guaranteeing data sovereignty through secure management of encryption keys;
• risk assessment with threat detection and response, and critical infrastructure protection.

Thales is today a leader in data protection, in particular thanks to globally recognized cryptographic management solutions.

About Thales

Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global leader in advanced technologies, investing in digital and “deep tech” innovations – connectivity, big data, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and quantum computing – to build a confident future crucial for the development of our societies. The Group provides its customers – businesses, organizations and governments – in the defense, aeronautics, space, transport, and digital identity and security domains with solutions, services and products that help them fulfill their critical role, consideration for the individual being the driving force behind all decisions.

Thales has 81,000 employees in 68 countries. In 2021, the Group generated sales of €16.2 billion.

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