A Cupertino startup is trying to make it as easy for people to enter their offices and other secured spaces as it is for them to unlock their iPhones.
Taking a page from fellow Cupertino company Apple Inc., Alcatraz AI Inc. is offering a facial recognition-based security system. Unlike Apple's Face ID, which verifies the legitimate users of particular devices, Alcatraz designed its Rock system to ascertain whether certain people should be allowed to enter specific secured places like offices, government or medical facilities or even stadium locker rooms.
Built around camera and 3D imaging technology, the Rock can authorize or block entry immediately, according to the company.
"Instead of hiring security guards, (companies) deploy our technology," Vince Gaydarzhiev, founder and president of Alcatraz, told the Business Journal. "You don't even have to pause. You just go, and by the time you approach the door, it's magically unlocked."
Alcatraz has some new cash to hire additional engineers and to market the Rock to new places, including Europe and the Middle East. The startup announced Tuesday it's raised $25 million in a Series A round led by Portola Valley's Almaz Capital.
In an age of widespread corporate and government surveillance and growing privacy concerns, many technologists and consumer advocates have raised worries about facial recognition technology. But Alcatraz, which prefers to call the Rock a "facial authentication" device, says its system was designed with privacy in mind.
The Rock doesn't link image information from verified users to their names, birth dates or other personal information other than their employee badge numbers, according to the company. It also doesn't collect or store images, except of those who are enrolled in its system. And what information it does store or transmit is encrypted, according to the company.
Even with verified users, when they approach a Rock device to enter a secure space, the device deletes the image it just collected of them as soon as it authenticates them, Gaydarzhiev said.
- Alcatraz AI Inc.
- Headquarters: Cupertino
- CEO: Tina D’Agostin
- Year founded: 2016
- Number of employees: 62
- Website: alcatraz.ai
Alcatraz's customers include a soccer club
Founded in 2016, Alcatraz already has about 80 customers for the Rock, including large financial institutions, sports stadiums and other companies and institutions that seek to secure high-value property or personnel, Gaydarzhiev said. On its website, Alcatraz touts BrainBox AI Inc., Major League Soccer's Los Angeles Football Club and Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles as being among those companies or organizations using or testing its system.
Each of Alcatraz's customers pays an annual fee of between $700 to $1,000 per Rock device, Gaydarzhiev said. For that they get access not only to the startup's authentication technology but also its data analysis software. The number of Rock devices customers install depends on their security needs and can range from a dozen to thousands, he said.
Customers can place Rock devices at indoor or outdoor entrances, turnstiles or any other place where people may enter a facility, Gaydarzhiev said. For extra security, some Alcatraz customers require employees to verify themselves not only with their faces but with a badge.
Including its new funds, Alcatraz has raised about $40 million to date. In addition to Almaz, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Endeavor Catalyst, Silverline Capital, Golden Seeds, Johnson Controls International PLC's JCI Ventures, Analog Devices Inc. co-founder Ray Stata and LDV Partners also invested in its latest round.
So far, the startup has not encountered any trademark issues for its use of "The Rock," at least not from actor and former pro wrestler Dwayne Johnson who used that as his ring name, Gaydarzhiev said. But, he said, he'd be thrilled to receive Johnson's endorsement
The market for Alcatraz's service could eventually be in the tens of billions of dollars, particularly if it can expand its customer base to include organizations for whom security is a "nice-to-have" rather than a "must-have," Gaydarzhiev said. Right now, the startup's its highest-value customers are financial institutions and data centers, which are both in that latter category.
"Those guys require that kind of access control, because there is a lot of value on the other side of the door."
