Entrust Datacard in Shakopee buys 300-employee hardware security business

Entrust Datacard in Shakopee has completed its acquisition of nCipher Security, a hardware security division of the French company Thales Group.

Entrust will inherit nCipher's 300 employees with the purchase, whose terms were not disclosed.

NCipher Security is expected to strengthen Entrust Datacard's ability to help clients secure data, verify identities and reduce hacking, viruses and other risks that can come from the cloud, internet of things devices and other digital products, officials said.

Under Entrust Datacard, nCipher Security will continue to be based in Sunrise, Fla. It will also continue to house its cybersecurity development center in Cambridge, England, and its sales support center in Hong Kong.

"We are extremely pleased to complete this acquisition and bring nCipher's exceptional talent and technology into the Entrust Datacard portfolio," said Entrust Datacard CEO Todd Wilkinson. "This acquisition is an excellent complement to our expertise in both cryptography and hardware and will extend our ability to meet the evolving security needs of our customers globally while allowing us to accelerate our own growth. ... NCipher has a strong market position."

Wilkinson added that the need for secure network access and data integrity continues to multiply — "from mobile devices and cloud services to connected IoT devices and digital payments." NCipher, he said, should help Entrust expand its offerings to customers dealing with sensitive data.

Entrust Datacard, which is based in Shakopee and had 2,200 employees before the nCipher acquisition, serves customers in 150 countries.

Before 2015, Entrust Datacard was simply known as Datacard and was best known for the automated machines it manufactured for banks and corporations needing to rapidly issue secure credit cards and employee ID cards.

Datacard bought Dallas-based Entrust with its 400 employees in 2013. Two years later, it renamed the merged company Entrust Datacard and moved into a new 375,000-square-foot space in Shakopee.

At the time, the $650 million company, which is owned by Germany's reclusive Quandt family of BMW fame, set bold plans to become a $1 billion company by 2020 by creating the next generation of technology that secures credit cards and online data.

Entrust Datacard's growth plans were aided by a swell of data breaches across the retail industry starting in 2013. Hackers accessed the customer data of a host of companies including Target, Neiman Marcus, Sears, Home Depot and JPMorgan Chase. Cybersecurity remains a key concern of corporations today.

Dee DePass • 612-673-7725