SwiftConnect has announced its acquisition of HID’s Workforce Business Unit, including the HID SAFE platform, marking a significant development in the field of identity lifecycle management.
This move aims to solve a prevalent challenge facing large organizations: the need for seamless and real-time updates of physical access permissions when employees join, change roles, or leave a company. Currently, organizations often struggle with a manual and fragmented process that separates digital and physical access management, leading to potential security risks and inefficiencies.
Physical Access Governance
The merger will integrate SwiftConnect's AccessCloud platform with HID SAFE's capabilities to create a unified solution for physical access governance. AccessCloud is known for linking identity providers, mobile credentials, and access control systems across various venues. Meanwhile, HID SAFE handles governance by automating requests, approvals, policy enforcement, and revocations as per changes in HR, IT, and security systems. This collaboration promises a comprehensive platform managing who has access, their permissions, and adjustments required when roles change.
Matt Kopel and Chip Kruger, Co-CEOs of SwiftConnect, expressed, "Access should be invisible for users. They are easily credentialed, they walk in, and nothing gets in their way. The addition of HID SAFE enables governance that makes this possible. The policies, approvals, and compliance requirements will now all live in the same platform as the experience.” They emphasized that the unified platform would simplify access, ensuring users receive precisely the permissions they require.
Security-Driven Organizations
Following the transaction, HID will maintain a minority, non-controlling stake in SwiftConnect
Björn Lidefelt, EVP and Head of HID, highlighted HID SAFE's longstanding reputation among security-focused organizations, noting, “HID SAFE has earned the trust of the world’s most security-driven organizations for more than two decades. Great technology deserves the space to reach its full potential, and SwiftConnect is the right partner to take it there.” Existing customers of SwiftConnect will benefit from integrated enterprise-level access governance, while HID SAFE users will gain from the cloud-based access infrastructure SwiftConnect provides.
Connected Access Network
Shane Butler, SwiftConnect’s EVP of Identity, has stepped into a leadership role for SAFE, focusing on its modernization and integration within SwiftConnect's connected access network. He stated, "This acquisition accelerates the modernization of SAFE by delivering it via our connected access network so organizations can manage physical and digital access through the same governance, risk, and compliance lens. This is the moment when these two worlds will finally speak the same language, and being a part of this industry transformation is precisely why I joined SwiftConnect.”
This acquisition builds on previous collaboration, with HID, having participated in SwiftConnect’s Series B funding round. Following the transaction, HID will maintain a minority, non-controlling stake in SwiftConnect, which remains independently controlled and managed by its existing leadership.
SwiftConnect, provider of the connected access network for places and spaces, announces the acquisition of HID’s Workforce Business Unit, including HID SAFE, the platform for automating identity lifecycle management in the physical world.
The combination addresses a problem every large organization faces. When someone joins a company, changes roles, or leaves, their physical access permissions should update automatically, everywhere, in real time. In most organizations today, that process is manual, fragmented, and unreliable because IT manages digital access while a separate team manages physical access, and the two systems rarely communicate. The result is friction, audit exposure, and access that persists long after it should have been revoked.
Physical access governance
SwiftConnect's AccessCloud platform connects identity providers, mobile credentials, and access control systems across buildings, campuses, and portfolios. HID SAFE manages the governance layer, automating access requests, approvals, policy enforcement, and revocation based on changes in HR, IT, and security systems. Together, they deliver a single platform for physical access governance that covers the full arc: who someone is, what they are authorized to access, how they access it, and what happens when their role changes.
"Access should be invisible for users. They are easily credentialed, they walk in, and nothing gets in their way. The addition of HID SAFE enables governance that makes this possible. The policies, approvals, and compliance requirements will now all live in the same platform as the experience,” said Matt Kopel and Chip Kruger, Co-CEOs of SwiftConnect. “Every person will get exactly the access they are entitled to, and just tapping to access buildings, doors, floors, and resources will be effortless.”
Security-driven organizations
“HID SAFE has earned the trust of the world’s most security-driven organizations for more than two decades. Great technology deserves the space to reach its full potential, and SwiftConnect is the right partner to take it there,” said Björn Lidefelt, EVP and Head of HID.
For existing SwiftConnect customers, the acquisition delivers enterprise-grade physical access governance capabilities natively integrated with AccessCloud. For existing HID SAFE customers, their governance platform is now backed by SwiftConnect’s cloud-first, connected access infrastructure that networks existing physical access systems with cloud, identity, and mobile technologies.
Connected access network
Shane Butler, EVP of Identity at SwiftConnect, has recently joined the company to lead the SAFE business and drive the evolution in physical access governance. "This acquisition accelerates the modernisation of SAFE by delivering it via our connected access network so organizations can manage physical and digital access through the same governance, risk, and compliance lens. This is the moment when these two worlds will finally speak the same language, and being a part of this industry transformation is precisely why I joined SwiftConnect,” Butler said.
The transaction builds on HID’s prior participation in SwiftConnect’s Series B funding round. HID will hold a minority, non-controlling interest in SwiftConnect following close. SwiftConnect is an independent company, controlled and managed by its existing leadership team.
