LogMeIn acquired the popular single-sign-on (SSO) and password management service LastPass in a deal worth at least $120 million. A high growth business with millions of loyal users and an award winning product line, LastPass will immediately bolster LogMeIn's position in the multi-billion dollar identity and access management (IAM) market, while accelerating one of the company's key strategic growth initiatives.
"LastPass has a great business, a beloved and award winning product, millions of loyal users, and thousands of great business customers. We believe this transaction instantly gives us a market leading position in password management, while also providing a highly favorable foundation for delivering the next generation of identity and access management solutions to individuals, teams and companies" – said Michael Simon, LogMeIn's Chairman and CEO.
LogMeIn is building a product and go-to-market strategy that embraces this BYOA reality and introduces new ways to help individuals and businesses secure access to sensitive information. The LastPass acquisition is expected to play a key role in this effort, is highly complementary to LogMeIn's existing identity portfolio, and offers a natural extension to LogMeIn's leadership position in the access market.
The future identity market is being shaped by realities that come from end-user driven adoption of cloud, web and mobile apps, and increasingly decentralized approaches to managing identity in the workplace. Seventy percent of companies report using employee-introduced applications (as opposed to IT introduced and company procured applications) in the workplace. This is especially relevant to IT professionals and businesses since eighty percent of cloud applications and services contain sensitive regulated or company confidential data.
Following the close of the deal, LogMeIn plans to bring complementary capabilities of its early identity management investments, including those of Meldium, which it acquired in September 2014, into LastPass. In the near-term, both the Meldium and LastPass product lines will continue to be supported, with longer-term plans to center around a singular identity management offering based on the LastPass service and brand.
