A Belfast-based company has raised £4 million in funding as it looks to further develop its incredible biometrics technology.
B-Secur’s Heartkey monitoring tech can identify an individual from their unique heartbeat which could be huge in the fields of cyber security and health.
Existing investors Accelerated Digital Ventures and Kernel Capital provided the additional capital, taking total investment in the company to £10m.
“This is the second time both have invested,” B-Secur chief executive Alan Foreman said. “It’s an extremely positive sign that we have done something right.”
B-Secur, which employs 36 people, plans to develop its product further and add eight members of staff.
“We are going to further develop out the technology,” said Foreman. “We are building our technology into cars and health tech; we need to do a lot of testing.”
The firm, which recently announced its plans to be Northern Ireland’s first $1 billion company, is to open a base in San Francisco and has attracted interest from global car manufacturers.
The company unveiled Heartkey at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year.
“Not only can it identify you from everyone else on the planet, we can also tell how well you are,” Foreman explained, adding that it could help the problem of driver fatigue, which is responsible for about 25 per cent of road deaths.
B-Secur’s tech can detect fatigue several minutes before it becomes dangerous.
“We have got a number of early customers, and that has gone crazy since we went to CES,” he said. “We got a lot of attention.”