Identity-theft protection company LifeLock recently announced that it had acquired Lemon Wallet’s company, Lemon Inc., for $42.6 million.
At the same time, LifeLock announced a new app called LifeLock Wallet that mirrors much of Lemon Wallet’s technology.
Lemon Wallet launched last year initially as a way to back up a user’s physical wallet (cards, IDs, etc., all digitized and secured). Since then, the company evolved the app into a platform that allowed users to check account balances and get alerted by fraud protection services.
In August, Lemon Inc. CEO Wences Casares indicated that Lemon Wallet would consider Bitcoin integration, but since the acquisition that is of the table.
LifeLock Wallet “is not, and will not be, a transactional products,” he told CoinDesk.
Previous backers of Lemon Wallet included Lightspeed Venture Partners, which just took part in a $5 million round of funding for BTC China in November.
LifeLock itself was founded in 2005 and offers a host of services related to identity protection. This includes monitoring references to users’ identities and tracking credit scores.
“Joining forces with LifeLock makes tremendous strategic sense and provides something completely new in the market: a digital wallet combined with a way to help protect it,” Casares said. “The new LifeLock Wallet is a big step forward in helping consumers navigate today's mobile world safely.”