Anonybit raises $3M to further build out biometric security

The last time we wrote about Anonybit in 2022, the New York and Tel Aviv-based biometric security startup had just emerged from stealth with a with $3.5 million round, promising to offer enhanced security to enterprises’ employee biometric data by slicing it up into anonymized bits and distributing them through a peer-to-peer network.

The method is designed to prevent hackers from grabbing employee credentials and biometrics from single repositories known as “honeypots”, and using them to impersonate a legitimate employee, gaining illicit access to the company’s systems and data.

Today, Anonybit is announcing another $3 million extension round to its seed, bringing its total raised so far to $8 million.

The latest round was led by JAM FINTOP with participation from Connecticut Innovations, and Anonybit says it will use the cash to continue building out this flagship system for securing and anonymizing identity information, now called Anonybit Genie.

Alarming headlines spur increased interest

“We all read the headlines and continue to be alarmed by the rapid pace of increased fraud, which suggests that existing solutions are mere bandaids,” said Frances Zelazny, Anonybit Co-Founder and CEO, in a statement. “When thinking about the root cause, it boils down to two things. Personal data is stored in central honeypots that are impossible to protect and we allow the use of this data to authenticate ourselves. It’s a never-ending cycle. Many players in the industry aim to expand their offerings to address more comprehensive use cases in identity, but only Anonybit can get us out of the current paradigm by making it safe to store biometrics.”

Zelanzy previously served in the 8200 unit within the Israel Defense Force and worked on BioCatch and Tapingo, both acquired by Grubhub.

Anonybit builds upon his previous experience in biometrics and payments, offering a “Decentralized Biometrics Cloud,” the Anonybit Genie system of passwordless authentication for employees built atop this cloud, and a decentralized data vault.

The decentralized biometrics cloud uses multi-party computing and zero-knowledge proofs, according to the company’s website.

Meanwhile, Anonybit Genie enables authentication by checking to see if each of the anonymized bits provide their portion of the requisite security credentials, without ever re-assembling the data into a complete whole. It supports Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML).

“Working across devices and applications, Anonybit returns an authentication response without any of the original biometric data components,” the company states.

In addition, the decentralized data vault allows enterprises to store non-biometric yet still sensitive data in another anonymized layer running atop the cloud.

Of course, Anonybit’s tools are all SOC 2 Type II compliant, and the company is also ISO 27001 certified.

New appointments

Anonybit also announced the appointment of two new leaders: Limor Elbaz, who previously worked in sales leadership at Imperva and Peerlyst, has been named Chief Revenue Officer. L

Meanwhile, Al Pascual, a former industry analyst at Javelin Research and co-founder of Breach Clarity, is joining Anonybit’s advisory board.

Armed with its new funding and commitment to enhancing security through anonymization and decentralization of data, Anonybit looks poised to continue growing and gaining a larger foothold in the fast-moving space of enterprise software security.