By Andrei Skvarsky.
One of the funds of global private equity firm Permira has pledged to acquire a majority stake in BioCatch, an Israeli digital fraud and money laundering detection company credited with having saved banks and bank customers from losses exceeding $3.5bn.
The size of the stake has not been disclosed. The bulk of it would consist of shares in BioCatch to be bought out by the Permira Growth Opportunities II fund from Bain Capital Tech Opportunities and Maverick Ventures, according to a joint statement by Permira and BioCatch.
Sapphire Ventures and Macquarie Capital would enlarge their current stakes in BioCatch, the statement said.
Permira, which is headquartered in London, acquired a significant minority stake in BioCatch a year ago.
BioCatch, which has recently been valued at $1.3bn, has a global clientele of more than 190 financial institutions, including more than 30 of the world’s largest 100 banks, the statement said.
It has developed behavioural biometric techniques, some proactive, to detect holders of illicit or stolen bank accounts.
The company analyses the digital behaviour of hundreds of millions of retail banking customers without any privacy infringement, the statement said.