Public key infrastructure developer iD2 Technologies yesterday celebrated the announcement of version 3.0 of its digital certificate management software by revealing a $7.5m venture capital injection from Cisco Systems Inc and Reuters. The deal will give the two companies roughly 10% of the Stockholm, Sweden-based firm, plus the chance to integrate its PKI technology in their own systems.
The company says that V3.0 of Certificate Manager features improved scalability, which should give iD2’s customers – generally trusted third party (TTP) certification authorities – the chance to offer their clients large batch management of smart cards. New components will allow TTPs to outsource the distribution, personalization and printing of cards to their card manufacturing partners. iD2’s selling point, marketing director Rain Eriksoo told ComputerWire, is its ability to handle many PKI standards, such as PKCS#15, and applications.
iD2, which has about 20 banking and TTP customers including the Finnish government, is owned by Ericsson and VC firm Schroder Ventures. According to sources, Cisco invested the larger portion of the new cash, gaining about two-thirds of the new partners’ 10% stake. The company said it will now begin to look into ways to integrate the PKI software into its virtual private network products. It is likely to be six to 12 months before any integration strategy is completed.
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