Warwick biometric spin-out raises $600k
Warwick Warp Limited, a spin-out from the University of Warwick, and developer of fingerprint recognition technologies, has successfully raised £600,000 of investment from an investing syndicate led by Synergis Technologies and including Mathmatical Capital, both specialist early stage funders with a strong links to the security industry.
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Warwick Warp has developed novel fingerprint recognition technologies that radically improve the matching accuracy and speed of the recognition process.
Current technologies suffer from their inability to deal with poor quality fingerprints casued by variable pressures, smears and changes in light, and therefore do not provide the high level of accuracy required in high security applications, such as passport control at airports.
Warwick Warp’s algorithms overcome these shortcomings by allowing for both linear and non-linear deformation in the measurement as well as allowing for variations in background contrast. Furthermore, the technology also incorprates third level features into the measurement such as sweat pores which increase accuracy in the match significantly.
The rapid worldwide growth of the biometrics sector can be attributed to several factors such as threats posed by terrorism, increasing movement of populations around the globe and the increase in user acceptance of the technology, as well as the demand for improved buildings access solutions and criminal identification. The global biometrics market is expected to reach $6bn by 2010.
Bill Joss, chairman of Warwick Warp, explained, “Although current fingerprint recognition technologies can satisfactorily process good quality images, the problem with these systems lies with their inability to process poor quality prints. This is where we believe Warwick Warp has a unique advantage - the ability of its algorithms to extract meaningful data from poor quality images. This is particularly important for a large proportion of the population who are unable to give good quality fingerprints as a result of damage to their fingers.”
Li Wang, chief technology officer of Warwick Warp added, “The technology is also highly scalable. It, therefore, has the potential to operate on very large scale databases without compromising on speed and accuracy.”
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© Chilli Publishing Ltd 2008 |
30 APR 2008 |
