Today, EyeVerify announced the closing of its series A funding round meant to drive mass adoption of its biometric technology: Eyeprint ID. The round closed with more than $6 million and now boasts the addition of Wells Fargo Investment Financial Services. Wells Fargo joins Qihoo 360, Sprint and Samsung Electronics as strategic investors.
Wells Fargo is investing in EyeVerify through its semiannual innovation boot camp, The Startup Accelerator, also announced today. The Startup Accelerator exists to support programs just like EyeVerify, that have the potential to shape the future of financial customer experience.
“We’re excited to be investing in EyeVerify through our accelerator,” says Steve Ellis, head of Wholesale Services at Wells Fargo. “It represents precisely the technology innovation in mobile security for financial services and E-commerce that is important to us.”
With the series A round officially closed, EyeVerify, as a company, has raised about $10 million. In July, The Wall Street Journal reported that the company was valued at $40 million during this round.
Toby Rush, CEO and Founder of EyeVerify comments: “No marketplace validation could be stronger than strategic investments by giants in the mobile space, including the largest security software firm in world, the leading bank in the U.S., and a wireless network operator serving more than 50 million U.S. customers.”
EyeVerify’s technology uses the vascular patterns on the side of a user’s eyeball in order to identify and authenticate. The biometric software solution is optimized for mobile, using the front facing camera on a device in order to capture the vein patterns. Quick, easy and accessible, EyeVerify’s Eyeprint ID has a wide range of applications, and finance fits into the company’s roadmap.
(At last year’s Biometric Consortium Conference, Toby Rush demonstrated EyeVerify for findBIOMETRICS)
Recently, EyeVerify was selected by The System Works Group, an Australian digital banking solutions provider, in order to provide protection for mobile financial transactions.
The success that EyeVerify has been experiencing, not just in this investment round, but also in international startup competitions, is indicative of a high demand for strong authentication, security and privacy as well as the move away from password and PIN solutions
“Our customers’ privacy and security are of utmost importance to Sprint,” says the vice president of Sprint’s Pinsight Media+ division, Kevin McGinnis. “Our customers’ privacy and security are of utmost importance to Sprint. With mobile security evolving beyond passwords, we are pleased to invest in EyeVerify and its easy-to-use innovative biometric solution.”
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August 20, 2014 – by Peter B. Counter
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