The secretive Dublin-based company has contracts for software that integrates biometric devices such as digital fingerprinting systems into wider databases and recently won a new deal with the ministry of justice of a "major Asian economy".

Daon declined to give more details on the deal and will formerly announce the four-year contract win over coming months. Daon's largest public deal to date was the 40m-partnership with Unisys in June to build the US Registered Traveller program.

The global security industry is booming according to Londonbased analysts at Venture Business Research indicates that venture capital funding for the North American and European homeland security industry has jumped by a third in 2007 as investors seek to profit from increased public spending on expertise provided by the private sector. VBR said security and defence companies have attracted $4.5bn in venture funding, 34% more than last year.

Tony Murphy, chief operations officer at Daon, said the influx of capital into the sector . . . particularly for start-ups . . . would ultimately create opportunity.

"This plays to Daon's strength because if the large defence and security multinationals contract out work to new smaller, nimbler players, as a systems integrator we're well positioned."

Dermot Desmond-backed Daon has relationships with the US, Australian, and New Zealand governments as well as several Asian governments and the European Commission. The Qatari and Saudi interior ministries are also clients.

According to VBR's latest Global Security Research Report, total investment in privately-owned IT security companies around the world has soared during the last three quarters, exceeding $2.6bn in the second quarter of 2007. This second-quarter rise is partly accounted for by several private equity funded acquisitions, such as the $1.1bn acquisition of Aeroflex by Veritas Capital.