Cybersecurity firm Anonybit announced the closing of a $3.5 million funding round on January 18th. The financing was led by San Francisco-based Switch Ventures. Other participants included NextGen Venture Partners, Industry Ventures, Preceptor Capital, and several strategic angel investors.
Anonybit was founded by Frances Zelazny, a longtime cybersecurity executive and biometric industry veteran, Yaron Azizi, former IDF Unit 8200 veteran and initial platform design architect and Shaked Vax, former product management and market innovation lead at Trusteer, a Boston-based computer security division of IBM.
The funding will enable Anonybit to accelerate its work with embedded partners and enterprises in support of the growing need for greater data protection and enhanced digital security, a direct response to the growing threat of cybersecurity breaches such as identity theft. In the past year, the total number of cyberattack-related data breaches increased by 27% compared to 2020. Researchers expect $1.7 trillion dollars to be spent on cybersecurity and identity management over the next five years.
Anonybit has developed a breakthrough decentralized biometrics infrastructure that addresses a longstanding market need for improved management of personal data and digital assets across a wide range of use cases. According to Anonybit’s website, the Anonybit system breaks down biometric data into anonymized bits (“Anonybits”) that reside in a vast peer-to-peer network, made up of various types of nodes that store and compute the biometric match. The anonymized bits “never leave the nodes and cannot be used to reconstruct the original image, answering the call for decentralization and the utmost in privacy and security.”
“Managing identity is central to every digital interaction we have today and there is no organization that is immune to the challenge,” noted Zelazny. “Anonybit provides a concrete solution for the first time[,] giving us hope for a future with no more data breaches. Our approach secures personal data and digital assets, filling a critical need that banks, fintechs, retailers, crypto wallets, government agencies and other stakeholders have in ensuring strong authentication without maintaining central honeypots of personal data.”
