D-ID raises $4M to bring its facial recognition-blocking technology to market
Tel Aviv-based startup D-ID has raised $4 million in seed financing to continue developing its AI technology for blocking facial recognition algorithms and help it bring its services to market, TechCrunch reports.
The funding round was led by Pitango Venture Capital, and participants include Foundation Capital, Fenox Venture Capital, Maverick Ventures, a pair of angel investors, and Y Combinator. D-ID also participated in a Y Combinator accelerator program last year.
Technology providing “de-identification” like D-ID’s is a new trend in data protection, TechCrunch reports, with the aim of protecting data used for authentication, as well as preventing the data from being “read.”
D-ID co-founders, CEO Gil Perry, COO Sella Blondheim, and CTO Eliran Kuta have experience working with AI algorithms and security identification services, and have developed a way to change images to make them resistant to facial recognition algorithms without significantly changing the way they look to humans. A pilot of the technology will be launched soon, according to TechCrunch, and the company expects to begin shipping the product in May.
“We consulted with the top facial research researchers and thought leaders and they looked into the tech and the research behind D-ID and gave us the assurance that for the upcoming years, their tech will be proven to be sufficiently strong enough against different types of AI attacks and learning algorithms,” Pitango principle Yair Cassuto told TechCrunch.
“People want a more seamless experience, and using biometrics as authentication is something that does that, but people are worried about services holding a lot of information, especially when cyberdata is a big target for hackers. They didn’t feel like keeping images is safe enough with current solutions.”
D-ID has been marketing its solutions to organizations with biometric data security responsibilities, some of which are driven by regulations like GDPR.
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