MotionAnalytics takes biometric identification beyond face, fingerprint and iris

Move over faces, fingers and irises, there’s a new biometric game in town, and it’s all about motion. While the idea is not entirely new, this company is, with Israeli startup MotionAnalytics looking to identify based on the way people move.

MotionAnalytics is built on biomechanical technology for behavior-based identification using what it calls its “Large Biomechanical Model” or LBM. The startup’s first product is MotionID, which delivers proprietary identification based on biomechanical signatures.

The company says the technology can identify people even when faces are obscured or unavailable. Potential use cases include border security, aerial surveillance, anti-trafficking and VIP tracking.

“We break walking or any kind of human movement into its atom,” Adi Nathan, founder and CEO of MotionAnalytics, explained in a podcast interview for The CET Brief. This “atom” is a biomechanical data point, such as a knee or heel, and the relationships between those points as a person moves.

“It gives a unique combination for each individual,” Nathan said, supplying them with their biomechanical signatures. The startup claims that it can generate a signature of a person from just five steps, or around three to five seconds, of video featuring the individual, and that they’ve achieved nearly 95 percent accuracy.

“The interesting shift is that motion is evolving from ‘behavioral analytics’ into actual identity intelligence,” Nathan commented on LinkedIn. “In many operational environments, movement patterns remain available long after faces fail.”

MotionAnalytics enters a growing field of behavioral and movement-based biometrics as organizations look for identity signals that remain available when faces are obscured, captured at long range or otherwise unavailable. Researchers have long explored gait recognition and other behavioral signals as supplementary biometric modalities, particularly for surveillance and security environments where facial images may be obscured, captured at a distance or unavailable altogether.

Like other behavioral biometric modalities, movement-based identification faces challenges around consistency and accuracy. Factors such as injury, aging, clothing, footwear and carrying objects can affect how a person moves, making real-world performance across diverse populations and conditions a key consideration for deployments at scale.

MotionAnalytics is preparing its seed round, according to Calcalistech, and it’s engaged in two pilots with “a major Israeli homeland security organization,” where it has achieved more than 90 percent identification accuracy on real operational video, the startup claims.

The company is positioning biomechanics not as a replacement for facial recognition, but as a complementary biometric signal that can support identification and re-identification in environments where facial imagery is unavailable or unreliable.

MotionID has been developed from more than 20 years of biomechanics research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, with the technology converting standard video into unique biomechanical signatures. This allows for persistent, cross-camera identification across environments and cameras. For example, it works on video captured from thermal, ground, aerial and distant sensors.

No specialized hardware is needed as standard video feeds work for MotionID’s identification and re-identification. It is offered as an SDK or API for on premises or cloud deployment.

MotionAnalytics was founded in 2025 by Adi Nathan, a tech entrepreneur who co-founded TeeVid which was acquired by Bizzabo in 2021, and Raziel Riemer, a biomechanics researcher and professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

The startup has raised US$1.1 million to date, with the last investment round raising $400,000 in mid March. Investors are InNegev & IIA, 1948 VC, JNF and Noam Bardin. MotionAnalytics has seven employees and are hiring for a Data Operations role.

MotionAnalytics is focusing on go-to market deployment and productization, expanding its AI and engineering teams, scaling and optimizing performance, building commercial capability with a focus on the U.S. market, and supporting pilots and early deployments with strategic partners and integrators.

Interest in alternative biometric modalities is growing as organizations seek identity signals that remain available when facial recognition is ineffective. The rise of AI-powered video analytics, aerial surveillance and long-range monitoring is creating new demand for technologies that can identify or re-identify individuals using attributes other than facial features.

Article Topics

behavioral biometrics  |  biomechanics  |  biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  gait recognition  |  MotionAnalytics  |  reidentification  |  startup