In regards the surprise ' Acquisition ( s) ' being left for early in 2021 , it would be my best guess if we put ' Two and Two ' together with some of the explicit expressions like ' control of end to end ' and ' Trusted 2 sided Customer Authentication and Security ' is that perhaps the acquisition which would ' round out ' their IP offerings making it further exclusive to Cirralto would be a nice little ' targete ' Cyber Security bolt on.
The mere fact that a Company of this nature could be acquired from left field and not only accepted but also supported by FISERV , Visa and Mastercard would be a huge ' coup ' and unique differentiation to the other Fintech players which would more than likely supercharged the SP to significantly greater heights depending who the partner is.
And when you think about the audit conducted by Macquarie back a few months ago as well as the almost increased requirement stemming from the B2B .....and B2C volumes which Cirralto may end up undertaking - Well you can definitely see the need for the ownership of this additional ' Layer ' or component in the end to end offering. Especially if it involves Telecoms interconnectivity and compatibility from a mobile app.
And this sort of acquisition if it were to be considered from among the listed options would most likely be more expensive and perhaps even cumbersomely drawn out from ASX / ASIC takeover perspective. So I would be looking more towards the Private Start-Up type companies who perhaps are now more mature with their advance tech after several rounds of VC funding. So more like Appstablishment without the common shareholder / founder as is the case with Adrian.
One of the Companies I really like is a Company called TokenOne who is a Sydney based Company who have created unique and unbreakable ' onetime ' code system for companies and individuals for all their authentications which eliminate the requirements for having to enter multiple codes for every authentication and thereby eliminating the need for many more potential passwords from equally as many different customer sites etc... .So I could see Cirralto taking ownership of this sort of Authentication process at the end of the day.
And TokenOne is not exactly chopped liver as they were selected by the United States Cyber Security Center of Excellence back in 2017 to work with a group of other start ups specializing in improving fraud and identity theft. They even have a member of their Board who is an ex FBI assistant Director and have been backed by some of Australia's richest families as well as former Commonwealth Chief Information Officer Bob Mckinnon. Only problem with TokenOne is that they are already backed in by another Sydney based security consulting company Seccom Global who sells / distributes TokenOne's offering in conjunction with their own so unless Cirralto were to Buy TokenOne ' Holis Bolis , they would not be able to secure this branded tech.
I guess one can only dream of ' Back Dooring ' an amazing start up company like TokenOne , and I do reckon that Cirralto would struggle getting a company like this on the cheap. Namely because TokenOne's biggest competitor was a company called FishNet based out of Kansa who was taken out by a similar sized competitor by the name of Accuvant back in February 2015 creating a $1.5 Billion security behemoth with over 10,000 customers and 1,400 employees . FishNet had approximately 650 prior to the merger whereas TokenOne had approximately 47 at the time of the merger.
At the time of the merger , Accuvant had been No.48 on the 2014 CRN solutions provider top 500 while FishNet was No.46 , and interestingly it was Blackstone who is another large Private Equity and leverage buyout player who emerged as the Majority shareholder of the combined company from its original majority stake in Accuvant which it acquired a year or so earlier.
Another one is Repsonsight. However as I understand it they are more into the security surrounding the tracking of Employees and other users so can perhaps rule this mob out.
Another one I like a lot is Haventec , the online security and networks provider who partnered with Alphahub , who with their Alphahub Cloud has created a platform which decentralises Authentication and Payments and which delivers highly secure payment and authentication solutions for international banks, payment service providers and merchants through its the AlphaHub platform.
AlphaHub is a single ecosystem that seamlessly connects each stakeholder through a single interface:
> Payment Providers use AlphaHub to promote and provision their solutions;
> Banks and other Financial Institutions use AlphaHub to access and sell these solutions; and
> Merchants access it to use and customise the most relevant solutions for their locations and customer bases.
As a result of this partnership, Alpha Payments cloud will become Haventec’s preferred integration provider for its identity authentication service, Haventec Authenticate, and its secure payment service, Secure Wallet.
Haventec also have their ' Authenticate ' offering which reimages the process of authentication fom login-plus-password through to decentralised ID with a genuinely private PIN . Accordingly this process in turn removes the liability which builds trust between businesses and their customers. with their ' Secure Wallet ' offering decentralizing the payment data by removing the requirement for merchants to store customers’ ID and credit card information
Then there is Kasada who according to a 2018 smart company publication was founded by 22 year old Sam Crowther who was former security consultant at Macquarie Group
Kasada’s customers consist of a number of ASX100 and Fortune100 companies, says Crowther, but the founder is staying tight-lipped on exactly who.
Then there is another private Australian Cyber Security Company called Forticode who had a second round funding and direct investment of $1.3 million from Pronto Software and who have a product called ' Cipherise ' which apparently allows businesses to interact with consumers and clients with the much talked about ' mobile ' applications and which allows the Business to choose how much data is given to the reciprocal party thereby reducing the overall risk to both parties. This sort of tech may also be useful and / or adapted to Cirralto's ' Control ' definition of end to end seamless transactions between Customers.
Forticode was also chosen in 2018 to participate with a group of other cyber security start-ups at the RSA conference in San Francisco.
Forticode's CEO is a fellow by the name of Tony Smales and was reported to have quoted Smart Company that he want to have a " shot at being the next Australian success Story " But I would hate to be the one to break the news to him than unless he somehow joins up with Cirralto in 2021 or someone like him , they most likely are all going to have to line up behind the front running candidate in Adrian Floate............
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