► Joint venture between high-tech Rheinmetall AG and DEMALOG, Germany’s biggest biometrics company
24 May 2022 – The technology enterprise Rheinmetall AG and DERMALOG Identification Systems GmbH, Germany’s largest biometrics firm, have contractually agreed to set up a joint venture. The new company, Rheinmetall Dermalog SensorTec GmbH, should begin operating in early summer 2022. Rheinmetall will hold a 65% stake in the partnership, with DERMALOG accounting for the remaining 35% share. Creation of the company still requires approval by the merger control authorities.
The strategic objective is to integrate biometric technology, artificial intelligence software, and digitization solutions in three different areas: driver monitoring, security, and industry. For Rheinmetall, the joint venture marks an important step in the transformation to digitization technology and expanding into driver monitoring solutions.
Furthermore, the new joint venture enhances the Düsseldorf-based technology group’s future-oriented diversification into biometrics applications geared to the security sector and industry. The move also adds to its existing digitization and software expertise. Importantly, the partnership reinforces Rheinmetall’s capabilities in five strategic technology clusters: automation, sensors, digitization, alternative mobility, and artificial intelligence.
“Setting up this joint venture is an important step in our transformation strategy, one which will enable us to offer cutting-edge monitoring, authentication, and security technology to our customers in the automotive sector and other industries”, states René Gansauge, CEO of Rheinmetall’s Sensors and Actuators division.
Rheinmetall Dermalog SensorTec GmbH will fuse Rheinmetall’s proprietary radar technology, which will be used for interior monitoring, with DERMALOG’s software, camera, and fingerprint technologies. In addition, an industrial application is already planned for the company access system at a Group-owned plant.
The majority-owned joint venture’s activities will be domiciled in Rheinmetall’s Sensors and Actuators division, which is spearheading the Group’s electrification strategy and applying new developments to the “Beyond Automotive” realm and industry in general.