Toady, Delta ID, a biometric authentication company focused on iris recognition, announced that it has closed a $5 million Series A financing round. The funding period was powered by strategic investors including Intel Capital.
Intel Capital’s investment was lead by Director Arun Chetty. Intel’s interest in Delta ID fits with a stated initiative to move away from passwords and toward the convenient high security of biometrics.
Erik Reid, vice president of Intel’s Mobile and Communications Group and general manager of its Tablet Business Unit explains: “We believe biometrics technology will increasingly become a part of how people interact with personal computing and mobile devices, enabling safer, more secure, and convenient user authentication. Working with biometric companies such as Delta ID is a key part of Intel’s initiatives to eliminate the hassle of passwords. Intel Capital’s investment will help accelerate the adoption of iris recognition by the ecosystem of device manufacturers, service providers and users.”
Delta ID’s patent pending solution, ActiveIRIS, is aimed at mass-market computing devices. According to the company, thanks to the solution’s iris feature extraction and comparison capabilities, ActiveIRIS is ideal for mobile and PC use, optimized for scenarios in which users most often access their devices.
Dr. Salil Prabhakar, president and CEO of Delta ID comments: “The addition of Intel Capital as a strategic investor allows us to uniquely influence the future of biometrics technologies in mass-market computing devices, and enable a more secure and convenient way for users to access services through their devices.”
According to the press release announcing the funding round’s close, Delta ID is looking to make electronic payments and transactions markets more accessible to its customers.
This week has been chock full of mainstream biometric enabled payment news. Notably, our sister site, Mobile ID World, reported on Tuesday that Apple is in partnership talks with Visa, MasterCard and American Express in order to enable NFC enabled payment on the next iPhone 6 which is also expected to ship with the Touch ID biometric sensor.
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September 4, 2014 – by Peter B. Counter
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