Belfast-based technology company B-Secur has announced a successful funding round worth £4m.
This second round of investment came from a syndicate of some of the UK and Ireland's leading investors, including Accelerated Digital Ventures (ADV) and Bank of Ireland's Kernel Capital.
The company, which employs more than 35 staff in its Belfast headquarters, has developed technology to harness the unique electrical signal of an individual's heartbeat (ECG) as a means of personal authentication.
B-Secur launched its Heartkey brand at the recent CES in Las Vegas.
Heartkey combines unique user identification with advanced physiological monitoring for health and wellness purposes, including medical grade heart rate, stress and fatigue monitoring.
This can be applied to everyday situations such as driving a car, or for real-time health monitoring in the home.
B-Secur is now partnering with some of the world's leading motoring manufacturers, global wearable and fitness tracker technology firms and leading semiconductor manufacturers, to embed Heartkey into multiple everyday technologies and wearables.
The company's CEO Alan Foreman said that Heartkey's algorithms offer data protection for devices and vehicles, while it also offers the added benefit of providing insights into an individual’s physical wellbeing.
"We're at a really exciting stage for the business, we have forged very significant links with big name partners who recognise our technology's value and importance to their own product development and this investment will allow us to continue driving our ambitions for B-Secur forward," he added.
