Veridium, a startup that wants to replace passwords with biometrics, announced on Friday that it has closed a Series B funding round worth $16.5 million. The round was led by British entrepreneur and philanthropist Michael Spencer, who reportedly invested $14.2 million.
The remaining $2.3 million come from Citrix Systems, Inc. and financial services executive and investor Michael Powell. Spencer, Citrix and Powell will all join the company's board.
Veridium, which has offices in Quincy, Mass. as well as in New York City and Europe, will use the money to accelerate its "aggressive growth trajectory," CEO James Stickland said. Specifically, Veridium - which has 75 global employees - will hire more people in sales and distribution, and it will continue its existing work in system engineering.
Plans for the Boston office include hiring three to five people over the next 12 months to be added to the current 12 to 15 full-time and flexible employees. The new local hires will support the product marketing team, as well as sales and engineering.
"Based on the success of how that goes, we'll look to deploy more resources," Stickland said.
Stickland referred to the Series B round as "the first time we've raised money outside of the existing family." While not disclosing the revenue or the total funding to date, he explained that Veridium was founded thanks to a significant investment of the management team and the existing board. The undisclosed "inside the four walls" round was preferred to raising external capital until the company felt comfortable enough with the readiness of the product and the revenue momentum, he said.
The puzzle that composes Veridium's total funding to date includes a $150,000 grant from Digital Financial Services Lab, a fintech accelerator organization focused on emerging markets, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
As for next steps, Stickland said that they will continue to grow the product portfolio, with announcements coming in the next six, twelve and eighteen months. In the area of blockchain, for example, the company is focusing on how to better using "the chain" for better identity management.
