Enterprise Facial Recognition Startup Raises $5 Million in Seed Funding

The AI company Oloid has come out of stealth mode after securing $5 million in seed funding. The round was led by Emergent Ventures, with additional contributions from Unusual Ventures and other backers.

Oloid is the developer of the FaceVault facial recognition platform, which is designed for contactless access control and attendance tracking in essential industries like manufacturing and healthcare. The solution is specifically geared towards the “deskless workers” on the factory floor (or a similar venue), where it can be installed at doors and turnstiles to ensure that only authorized employees have access to restricted areas.

Oloid’s technology can be integrated into an organization’s existing attendance and access control infrastructure, and does not require a significant hardware investment. The platform includes an app that is compatible with a standard tablet, which workers can use to gain entry to a building.

According to Oloid, the solution should be particularly beneficial for organizations that need to ensure worker safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. FaceVault can determine whether or not a worker is wearing a PPE mask, and will automatically ask for step-up authentication via voice recognition or a QR code if it is not confident in the initial face scan. The system also offers temperature detection capabilities, so it can bar access to anyone running a fever to ensure a safe work environment and prevent the spread of a contagion.   

“Protecting our essential workers has become one of our most important tasks as a society,” said Emergent Ventures General Partner Anupam Rastogi. “Oloid’s technology will be increasingly relevant in a world where businesses face a new challenge of ensuring that people are back to work in a contagion-safe workplace.”

The contract manufacturer Flex is already using Oloid’s technology at multiple sites in the U.S. Oloid has been developing its platform through a private beta with several Fortune 500 customers since 2018.

To ensure privacy, the Oloid platform gets rid of the facial images used during registration. The images are instead stored as encrypted numerical code that is useless outside the workplace. As a result, employees’ biometric information cannot be shared with any third parties.

FaceVault is one of several new solutions that offers face and temperature detection. Platinum CCTV released a new PT-AS7213X-T1 Thermal IP camera, while ZKTeco updated its existing line of access control readers.

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June 1, 2020 – by Eric Weiss