Taiwan’s Airsig nabs $2M in funding from Foxconn

Electronics manufacturer Foxconn has invested US$2 million in AirSig, a Taipei-based startup developing technology that lets users enter in passwords for apps and websites by waving their smartphones.

Using the built-in accelerometer inside most smartphones (that’s what tells your phone it’s rightside-up or upside-down), AirSig records motion gestures and assigns them to open apps and enter in usernames and passwords for websites. For example, tracing “FB” into the air using one’s phone might automatically open Facebook Messenger, or tracing a lightning bolt to enter one’s username and password into eBay.

Is this better than existing alternatives? The AirSig team claims that inputting sensitive information through gestures is more secure than other methods. Manually typing in one’s username and password is cumbersome and onlookers can sneak a peek. As for facial recognition, well, you could open someone else’s phone holding by waving a picture of them in front of the camera… but that’s unlikely. If AirSig won’t earn much respect among the security minded, it makes an amusing gimmick.

Currently, the AirSig team offers two apps available for free download in Google Play: AirSig Password Wallet, which works with logins, and AirSig Unlock, which opens up apps. Pokai Chen, co-founder of AirSig, tells Tech in Asia that the latter is more of a “proof of concept,” but both of these apps are a little rough around the edges. You’ll have to thumb through your phone settings to make sure that AirSig works properly, and something about the motion sensoring feels a little dubious. There’s an option to adjust the gesture security from strong to weak (much like certain text-based passwords are “strong” or “weak”), but it’s not clear what that means in the context of waving your phone.

Chen tells Tech in Asia that he started AirSig in June, around the time he joined the eighth batch of Taiwan accelerator AppWorks.

Though AirSig’s apps might not draw much attention from within an app store, it offers the sort of eye-catching technology that smartphone manufacturers like to add to their devices in an effort to woo buyers in retail outlets. A salesman at the local electronics mall, for example, might shake the latest Samsung model to unlock it, dazzling a customer who’s otherwise confused by the rows of seemingly-identical devices. This is where Foxconn’s money might come in handy – Chen tells Tech in Asia that he intends to monetize AirSig by licensing his algorithm out to manufacturers. Since Foxconn builds phones for a number of ODMs, it’s in a strong position to help AirSig get its technology on the latest devices, but no such deals have been announced just yet.

Foxconn has expressed its commitment to supporting startups intermittently over the past year, but it’s been relatively tight-lipped about how it plans to do so. Neither AirSig nor Foxconn would tell Tech in Asia who and which part of the company was responsible for this particular funding round. Regardless, Foxconn’s investment in AirSig marks the latest in a steady stream of startup-minded initiatives from the electronics maker. Last June it invested US$2.2 million in Singapore’s Mig33 social network, and contributed to a US$3.18 million round for surveillance tech startup KAI Square. It also announced plans to launch an incubator and corresponding venture fund from Taipei (led by subsidiary branch Syntrend Creative Park), and has another incubator in Beijing.

Editing by Steven Millward; top image via baluxp

The post Taiwan’s Airsig nabs $2M in funding from Foxconn appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Taiwan’s Airsig nabs $2M in funding from Foxconn