German cybersecurity firm Utimaco GmbH today announced it has acquired cryptographic key management firm Geobridge Corporation for an undisclosed price.

Founded in 1997, Geobridge sells and supports encryption, cryptography and payment applications for payment processors, issuers, terminal manufacturers and merchants.

In particular, the company’s services include key management program development, payments industry consulting, cryptographic software development warehouse services, cryptographic solution architecture and hardware security module virtualization.

If not a household name, Geobridge has technology that can be found globally in financial services, particularly in point-of-sale devices. The company has also been at the forefront in the development of international standards such as ASC X9, PCI and EMVco.

The acquisition would allow Utimaco to add support for key injection at the point of sale and key management as a service to its existing lineup of cybersecurity products with Geobridge’s KeyBRIDGE platform complimenting Utimaco’s Atalla product line of hardware security modules. Geobridge’s employees and customers will be integrated into Utimaco’s Information Security business and solutions.

“The KeyBRIDGE platform combined with our Atalla hardware security module will offer greater flexibility to financial institutions and payment providers to inject and remotely manage cryptographic keys, simplifying security for our customers even as the environment grows more complex.” Malte Pollmann, chief strategy officer of Utimaco, said in a statement. “By acquiring Geobridge, we are taking the next step in developing Utimaco from a product vendor to a solution provider and complementing our solution portfolio in a meaningful way in order to be able to offer customers an integrated security solution.”

The acquisition is Utimaco’s first since it acquired the Atalla Hardware Security Module and Enterprise Secure Key Manager from Micro Focus in 2018. Utimaco in turn was acquired by the Swedish private equity group EQT in 2016.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2020 subject to customary closing conditions. The deal was announced ahead of the annual RSA Conference in San Francisco starting today.

Photo: Geobridge