NexID gets funding for R&D, commercialization of biometric liveness detection

NexID has received a series of funding grants totalling $325,000, the company announced Wednesday.

According to the company, funds will be directed to further R&D into its liveness detection technology and the commercialization of additional modes of authentication.

NexID has also announced that it will participate along with Clarkson University and West Virginia University in joint research into biometric security technology, sponsored by the National Science Foundation. NexID says it will gain the right to license technology that results from that research. The company is a venture “spinout” from both schools, with several of the company’s founders serving on their faculty.

In particular, to expand the NSF-funded work at Clarkson and WVU, NexID has received a matching grant of $100,000 from Seaway Private Equity Corporation (SPEC) to develop a commercial liveness-detection application for security systems that scan people’s faces and the irises in human eyes.  SPEC provides early stage equity capital funding for companies in St. Lawrence County, N.Y., with significant growth potential.

NexID also received a $150,000 Grant for Growth from the Syracuse-based CenterState Corporation for Economic Opportunity (CEO), which will be augmented by another matching grant from SPEC in the amount of $75,000.  The CenterState CEO grant to NexID was one of only two organizations awarded from among scores of companies that applied for funding.

“We expect this funding to extend and accelerate our operations through the two to three years it may take before NexID begins to realize royalty revenue from the licensing of our technology in these new areas,” Stephanie Schuckers, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Clarkson University and CEO of NexID said.

Reported previously, last month, NexID launched its Mobile Live Finger Detection software, boasting authentication rates as high as 94-97 percent.

Article Topics

liveness detection  |  NexID  |  research