VC Capital, Healthcare Biometrics, and Tesla’s Cybertruck: This Week’s Top Stories

The week’s roundup of FindBiometrics’ top stories features a good deal of investor excitement, a major healthcare collaboration, facial recognition controversy, and, intriguingly, a Tesla patent.

On the VC front, Vancouver’s Trulioo has officially become a tech unicorn after a $394 million Series D funding round brought its valuation to $1.75 billion. The company bills itself as an identity verification specialist that draws on a wide range of data sources, from credit bureaus to phone records. It also makes use of facial recognition technology to enable selfie-based identity verification:

Trulioo Becomes Tech Unicorn After $394M Series D

Another selfie onboarding specialist also got some attention for investor excitement this week. Socure, which had its own $100 million Series D funding round earlier this year, has received a major commitment from Capital One Ventures. The value of the investment is undisclosed, but Socure says it now has a valuation of $1.3 billion:

Capital One Makes Strategic Investment in Socure

And yet another company involved in selfie-based onboarding was in the news this week for a much different reason. Aware, Inc., the developer of the face-based Knomi solution, got some attention from FindBiometrics readers thanks to its partnership with Imprivata, a patient identification specialist in the healthcare space. The latter is using Knomi technology in a new self-enrollment solution for prescribers of Electronic Prescriptions for Controlled Substances:

Imprivata’s EPCS Self-enrollment Solution Features Aware’s Knomi Tech

Facial recognition was also getting some attention this week in a more negative light, as well. Readers showed a lot of interest in what the Security Industry Association had to say about a proposed facial recognition ban in Baltimore. The ban is more radical than many of the other facial recognition restrictions that have been seen across the US in that it applies even to applications of the technology that require subjects to voluntarily opt in:

SIA Voices Opposition to Baltimore’s Proposed Facial Recognition Ban

… but on a much more positive note, this week also brought the news that Tesla might ramp up its use of biometric technology in its electric vehicles. Readers showed very strong interest in a patent application from the company that details how facial recognition could be used in Tesla’s upcoming Cybertruck vehicle:

Tesla Patent Points to Facial Recognition Tech in Cybertruck

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Stay posted to FindBiometrics next week as we continue to bring you the latest news and interviews from the exciting world of biometrics. To see the hottest stories of the week in mobile digital identity, visit our sibling site Mobile ID World.

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June 12, 2021 – by Alex Perala