Alacris is a leading software provider of certificate management and identity assurance solutions. Alacris’ technology provides a unique lifecycle management platform that assists large enterprises to deploy, manage and maintain identity authentication solutions, including digital certificates, tokens, and the rapidly expanding use of smart card technologies. For global organizations, identity assurance is becoming a central need in realizing a comprehensive identity management solution that leverages previous investments in authentication products and services. Addressing this need, Alacris has established a Fortune 500 customer base serving both the commercial and government sectors including top financial services, pharmaceutical and state/federal governments across Europe and the Americas. Such client adoption led to over 50% revenue growth on an annual basis.

Amidst a period of rapid growth at the Company and paralleling an inflection point within the identity management sector, Alacris was approached by leading technology and security firms for partnerships and potential acquisition. A catalyst to such discussions is the U.S. Homeland Security directive to establish a common identification standard for all federal government employees. Alacris’ lifecycle management platform delivers a key piece to an overall security solution sought by identity and authentication product vendors.

In successfully partnering with TripleTree in the sale of EXOCOM back in 2001 (Alacris’ shareholders first company), Alacris hired TripleTree to advise them on evaluating the prospects of an acquisition at a period of early, yet rapid growth. TripleTree sought to quickly filter and examine the relevance of each potential acquirer with a focus on the various prospects' ability to value the strategic and future potential of Alacris.

Responding to solicitations as well as reaching out to a highly select group of additional firms, TripleTree moved quickly to address the opportunity and engage strategic discussions with vendors that spanned the U.S. and Europe. Such discussions translated to expressed interest in Alacris that provided different options to the firm. After competitive negotiations, the company selected and consummated the sale of the firm to Microsoft. As technology partners, Microsoft recognized and placed a premium on the future value of Alacris’ early success and its technology lead in the identity assurance space. The current Microsoft Windows platform provides the ability to utilize smart cards and other advanced authentication technologies through Active Directory and Microsoft Certificate Services, but managing these systems still proved difficult for end users. Built on .NET, Alacris’ products directly integrate into the Windows platform and thus provide an end-to-end solution to address the needs of provisioning, deploying, managing, and auditing smart cards and digital certificates with advanced policy and workflow capabilities. Professionally, the transaction has provided an opportunity for a number of Alacris’ development team members to join Microsoft’s security group in Redmond, WA.

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