LifeLock Acquires Mobile Wallet Platform Lemon For $42.6 Million, Launches LifeLock Wallet
Lemon, a digital wallet platform which allows users to store their ID, payment, loyalty cards and more on their smartphone, has been acquired by identity theft protection service LifeLock …
Context & Ripple Effects
Lemon entered the market in 2012 with a digital wallet launch and $8 million Series A, built around storing IDs, payment cards and loyalty cards on a smartphone. LifeLock's purchase brings that wallet capability inside an identity-theft-protection service rather than leaving Lemon as a standalone app.
The deal makes mobile credential storage a product extension for LifeLock: the company can pair protection of a consumer's identity with a place to keep the underlying identity and payment credentials.
First-order effects
- LifeLock gains Lemon's wallet platform and launches LifeLock Wallet, extending its service into smartphone storage for IDs, payment cards and loyalty cards.
- Lemon's product and its mobile-wallet experience shift from an independent offering to a LifeLock product line.
Second-order effects
- LifeLock customers gain a single provider for identity-theft protection and a mobile wallet, increasing the value of LifeLock's customer relationship beyond monitoring alone.
Third-order effects
- If other identity-protection providers follow LifeLock's model, digital wallets may increasingly function as permission layers around personal credentials, not merely payment tools.
The trend: Identity-protection services are beginning to treat mobile wallets as a way to own more of the consumer credential relationship.