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Swedish firm buys Potsdam company working on fingerprint ID authentication

Posted 12/14/16

POTSDAM – A Potsdam company working to improve fingerprint matching technology has been acquired by a Swedish firm employing related technology. NexID Biometrics LLC, 65 Main St., provides …

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Swedish firm buys Potsdam company working on fingerprint ID authentication

Posted

POTSDAM – A Potsdam company working to improve fingerprint matching technology has been acquired by a Swedish firm employing related technology.

NexID Biometrics LLC, 65 Main St., provides biometric authentication methods to detect and protect against attempts at accessing systems with false fingerprint identification.

The Swedish company, Precise Biometrics, is a provider of fingerprint software solutions.

“This combination of organizational resources and technologies will make for a strong contribution to the biometric authentication industry, including greater convenience and security for consumers making mobile payments with their smart phones,” said NexID CEO and Clarkson University faculty member Dr. Stephanie Schuckers in a press release.

“Precise Biometric’s board of directors recognizes the critical value NexID’s fake finger detection solution brings to the market,” said Hakan Persson, CEO of Precise Biometrics. “Moreover, the Potsdam location gives Precise direct access to local academic institutions like Clarkson and St. Lawrence to conduct research and recruit students,” he said.

NexID was founded in 2005. The company’s founders are four of academia’s top biometrics scientists and among the world’s leading authorities in the field, the company’s web site says.

Those founders are CEO Dr. Stephanie Schuckers; Dr. Bojan Cukic, who has worked at Clarkson and elsewhere on fingerprint sensors; Dr. Michael E. Schuckers, a member of St. Lawrence University’s mathematics team working on biometric error rates; and Dr. Lawrence A. Hornak of West Virginia University, who explores physiological and molecular biometric sensors and systems.

Chief Operating Officer Mark Cornett joined NexID Biometrics in 2011, following a decade of general management and startup experience with local company Fused Solutions and other companies, which was preceded by 13 years at Clarkson as faculty member and academic program director. During the first 10 years of his professional career Cornett was employed as a sales and marketing professional with the Hewlett-Packard Company.

Using patented software technology, NexID provides customers with a systems-level approach to improving biometric authentication with the latest innovations for what in the business are called “liveness detection” and “spoof mitigation,” according to the NexIDBiometrics web site.

The software “exploits raw image characteristics between real fingers and spoof attacks, thereby instilling confidence into our customers’ biometric authentication solutions,” which “offer solutions for minimizing identified vulnerabilities,” the web site says.

NexID has benefitted from the use of incubator space in Clarkson’s Shipley Center for Innovation, and funding from regional economic development entities Seaway Private Equity Corporation and Centerstate CEO.

“This successful outcome by NexID is a sterling example of how local institutions can collectively support economic development in the North Country,” said Clarkson University President Dr. Anthony Collins. “We welcome Precise Biometrics to the Potsdam community and look forward to supporting their continued success,” he said.