Interview with Nick VandenBrekel, CEO, Sequiam Corp.

Feature Company

Interview with Nick VandenBrekel, CEO, Sequiam Corp.
February 2007

Can you provide our readers with a brief background of the company, please?

Certainly! I founded Sequiam in 1999. I have an extensive military background and part of that background was very much dedicated to security aspects and human security. Academically I have a degree in biosciences as well as neuro-physiology so I have always been very interested in all aspects of human physiology. I have been around Biometrics for the better part of 20 years and at one point in the early-90s I came up with the idea that biological identification could and should be utilised for consumer applications to make life more convenient and secure. In 1999 we founded the company and started a very extensive research & development process, which ultimately of course resulted in the products we have to-day. The company has been in research development for 5 years and the complete focus of the company has been to create products that are biometrically enabled which instead of catering to law enforcement and homeland security -- the applications that are mostly known in the industry right now -- specifically cater to what we call consumer lifestyle biometrics (a term we coined years ago) -- products that the consumer can buy at a very affordable price, aesthetically look phenomenal and that make their life easier and at the same time more secure. That is the core philosophy of the company. It has been coming for a long time and after 5 years of R&D, our products have hit the marketplace with a vengeance and things are looking excellent!

Just to follow up on that -- you have just announced a major new product launch with Black & Decker. Can you elaborate on that for us?

We work with Black & Decker specifically -- Kwikset -- the most trusted lock brand in the United States on the world's first Biometric deadbolt. Now we know there are other Biometric locking systems out there -- we have seen them -- they are pretty much all the same -- metal looking big boxes, fairly expensive -- that very few people, very few consumers would put on their front door. It was really the goal of Black & Decker and Sequiam to develop something that was so unique yet looked so similar to what is on your front door right now that if you didn't know it was Biometric you wouldn't know it by looking at the lock. We have worked for 3 years on this product --it was just announced a couple of weeks ago and it hit Home Depot last month so a very exciting time for us that this product has finally reached the consumer!

What were some of the issues you considered when creating this door lock with Black & Decker?

Well the biggest issues were, of course, that we had to understand human user psychology. We knew that a couple of things were very important for a consumer to even consider putting this on their door. One of course was credibility. We had to have complete credibility and name recognition. Of course with Black & Decker Quickset we achieved that. In a survey we found that almost 85 out of 90 people, or 95 out of a hundred people had heard of Kwikset and Black & Decker before. So the credibility was established right there! Secondary -- we needed to create a lock that looked absolutely phenomenal -- something that you wouldn't just put on your door for the Biometric functions but you would put it on your door even if you wouldn't use the Biometric functions because it looks that good -- and Black & Decker has created aesthetics and functionality to this lock that are just stunning. Third -- the psychology of having a consumer use a lock that is now fully Biometric versus something that they have been used to, which is a key, very smartly we decided to still leave a keyhole in the lock with a key backup, even though we know you will never use it again -- but it is that part of psychology of transitioning from something that you have grown up with, something that you have known about all your life to something that is sophisticated and high tech and be able to make that transition without any type of resistance. And I am confident that we have succeeded in that -- everybody who has seen the lock has raved about it and I think we have achieved every point I have mentioned.

Having seen the lock myself I would like to add my congratulations -- it does look fantastic! This is one of the first large scale offering of a consumer Biometric product. How do you think this will affect the industry?

I think it will affect the industry in a number of ways. No. 1 - I think it will be disruptive from a price standpoint. This lock will be offered for about $199.00 at Home Depot and name brand hardware stores which means that a lot of these Biometric residential or commercial locking systems that are on the market, the ones that don't look half as nice as this one does and are selling at three times the price -- they are really going to have to consider the fact that you can no longer sell Biometrics at a premium because they simply wouldn't be able to compete, so one of the things we have done by creating this product line is bring the price point way down to the point where the consumer can afford it. That is a huge impact! No. 2 - by creating an alliance with Black & Decker and Kwikset what we have done is we have taken Biometrics -- which otherwise has been known for its usual applications like law enforcement, border patrol and homeland security -- and we have been shining a spotlight on it vis-à-vis its usability and applications in the consumer market, so clearly we are pulling this type of product and this type of technology into the consumer market which will have widespread applications and effects simply because the credibility and the media which is going to surround it is huge. We are not going to be a company whose name you haven't heard of who is trying to put a product in the market. We are going to have large Fortune 50 partners who will acquire our biometric OEM products and will implement them into their product lines and then will run massive marketing campaigns around them that cost tens of millions of dollars.

Nick, what are your other Biometric product offerings?

Well we have of course the BioLock/SmartScan, which the industry thinks sometimes, is our only product -- which it is not. We are very proud to have several wonderful product lines - one of which is the BioVault, which is proudly carried by organizations like the National Rifle Association where it addresses gun safety and keeping your gun safely away from children and other un-authorized individuals. At the same time the BioVault is being sold by distributors all over the United States and is being used for a wide array of applications especially to protect valuables and jewellery, stock certificates -- anything you can think about. The BioVault is of course a safe which is biometrically actuated -- one of our fingerprint technologies resides in there -- it is very similar to what is in the lock as well -- and we invented the product quite a few years ago and worked on several different versions of it until the one that is for sale right now hit the market about 3 months ago and its success has been staggering!

And beside the home security market what other verticals are you focussing on?

There are quite a few other verticals. One of them is, of course, using another product we have which is called The Universal Biometric Interface - the UBI, the UBI is a Biometric device that will replace anything that you currently activate either with a remote control, a pin code, a pin pad or even the regular switch. Simply put -- anything that you want to switch on or off you can take this device and make it Biometric instantly. It performs to all codes -- it is under $125.00. For example, you can take the switch to your garbage disposal -- a good example because funny enough a lot of people have said to me, “Now there are some devices in the home that one would really like to restrict access to”. So let's take the garbage disposal -- you don't want your kids to put their hands down there and have them play with the switch, an unthinkable scenario. You simply put the UBI on. The garage door opener -- similar thing -- you no longer want to use the Pin code -- you want to use the Biometric opener. I came up with the garage door opener concept in 1996 -- when the company was in its pre-founding R&D stage. We have thermostats -- we have alarm code applications where you come into your house and instead of punching in your alarm code you simply swipe your finger on our Biometric device. So there are all kinds of verticals within the home security alone -- that is just mentioning six of them.

As a global player, where are you seeing the greatest growth?

The greatest growth we are seeing is in China right now and the reason for that is that China has no real incumbent security technology -- similar to South Korea where -- if you take an example like telecommunications, they went from having no access to full access. In China, with this tremendous migration of three hundred million plus people from the agricultural regions to the lowlands and the industrial regions -- what is happening is that China is building an infrastructure that is very sophisticated and they have really embraced Biometrics. Our subsidiary in China, which is called New Era Biometrics, is already one of the largest Biometric companies in China and we are partnered with the largest IT company in China, a corporation named CJCC and we are seeing a market growing at an absolutely staggering pace. We are making applications in China and to mention one specific example -- it is the ability to verify yourself on any credit card and ATM transaction biometrically. Now that is something that in the United States is starting to take off slowly -- it is getting some exposure now. We actually have tried to introduce that system as early as 5 years ago as a concept to verify credit card transactions but in China there is no resistance at all. So we are working with the largest bank in China on creating a pilot project in the first quarter of 2007 to do exactly that. In addition we are working on health care products that are Biometric, we are working on telecommunications projects that are Biometric. So in my opinion China will have the largest growth. That not withstanding, America, of course, is growing very rapidly also and I think, because of these alliances we have with Black & Decker and Arrow Electronics and ADI we are going to see our market growing very rapidly in the US also and we will have tremendous awareness of our brand name in 2007.

Well, Nick, this has been a very exciting year I am sure for your company and I wish you all the best with this latest deployment with Black & Decker. I think it is very exciting for the industry on the whole.

Yes! This has been 10 years plus in the making and I think we have done a good job in not putting products out in the market place while we are still working on them. We were very diligent in waiting until they were fully tested and fully functional before we took them out into the market place because we do not want to have any mistakes. And we have created some great partnerships with other Biometric companies as well and I believe that, amongst all of us, it is our duty and our task commercially to make sure that Biometrics is brought to the forefront so that -- what I said almost ten years ago now - which is where most transactions of human beings will be conducted through Biology and Biological identification systems will occur, and that is what I know will turn this into a multi-billion dollar industry and we are glad to be a part of it!

Thank you very much, Nick!

You are most welcome Peter.

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