Blockchain Biometrics Startup Raises $3 Million in New Funding

A startup aiming to bridge the worlds of blockchain tech and biometric security has raised $3m in new funding.

HYPR raised the funds from RTP Ventures, Boldstart Ventures and Mesh Ventures. The funding round comes just under two years after the startup closed a $350,000 private investment, while at the time pitching itself as a means to secure bitcoin transactions with the help of a fingerprint.

According to George Avetisov, CEO of HYPR, the majority of the funds will be used to build out the startup’s development team, based primarily in New York.

Avetisov said of the funding round:

"As traditional identity verification measures continue to fail, we are witnessing significant enterprise validation of the biometric security space. This signifies a tipping point in mass adoption of secure password-less authentication."

The concept of using biometric signatures to add an additional security layer for transactions involving bitcoin or other kinds of digital, blockchain-based assets has attracted interest in the past.

While not the only area of focus for HYPR – the startup is also pitching its technology for broader use in IoT and cloud computing applications – it's an area that some advocates have said could play a role in developing means for putting identity on the blockchain.

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