November 23, 2013 – by Peter B. Counter
Yesterday in Rotterdam, eight startups from around the globe went head to head, putting up their dukes and squaring off in Get in the Ring 2013. As the Global Entrepreneurship Week 2013 progressed and the panel of judges (comprised of the heads of incubators, accelerators and entrepreneurship organizations) whittled down the 40 finalists, which were selected from an initial application pool of 283 entrants, it became clear that a major contender for the big million euro prize was none other than EyePrint biometric verification company EyeVerify.
EyeVerify’s proprietary technology is a wide reaching strong authentication solution that operated on eye-based biometrics called EyePrints: maps of the visible blood vessels in your eye. The EyeVerify app can be downloaded onto a mobile device (both Android and iOS) and immediately offer post-password protection for an end user, leveraging the front-facing camera as an authentication device. Modular and scalable, EyeVerify can be used for enterprise solutions requiring a boost to their security or individuals wanting to add an extra layer of protection to a personal device.
The judges selected EyeVerify as the top US finisher in the competition, which netted them a $10,000 cash prize, and placed the company in the group of the previously mentioned eight international finalists competing for the grand prize.
Company CEO Toby Rush represented the solution well, placing EyePrint biometric security in the number one spot internationally, winning the competition and scoring the angel investment prize worth approximately $1.4 million. According to EyeVerify’s executive vice president, Chris Barnett, the win was owed to both Rush’s aptitude in describing the offering, as well as its clear place in the post-password paradigm society is entering on a global level.
“[It’s] patented, the whole category is patented. Nobody else can do Eyeprints but EyeVerify,” said Barnett speaking to the startup’s major strengths. “Secondly, the pain point that we solve – passwords and security – is a pain point that every single person feels if they have a phone or computer. Many startups have solutions that are applicable to a niche market segment. But everybody feels our pain and says, ‘save me!’ Also, the market opportunity for EyeVerify is tremendous. When you look at the use cases where people need secure authentication or a password, then you look at the ten to fifteen ways customers can apply our technology, and everyone gets it. There’s a whole buffet of market opportunities and audience members gravitate to the one that speaks to them the most.”
EyeVerify is a specifically appropriate solution when it comes to the kind of strong authentication principles that drive the mCommerce movement. Before the recent wave of smartphones and computers featuring fingerprint swipe sensors, market analysts expected solutions similar to EyeVerify – ones that took advantage of current generation mobile hardware like front facing cameras – to herald in the passwordless near future. It is clear with EyeVerify’s international success story that as fingerprint fever begins to die down, the concept of SDK based biometric solutions still has a significant amount of traction in to mobile world.
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