Auston Bunsen had a lot of free time after his company QuickNode reached a certain size. That company, a blockchain developer platform, was founded in 2017 and subsequently raised around $60 million in funding, according to PitchBook.
Then Bunsen started thinking about the fact that people would perhaps like to unlock their doors with their iPhone. “I eventually met with some folks at Apple and they decided to make a bet that I could help further their goals to enable every company to bring the power of Apple Wallet to their door,” Bunsen told TechCrunch.
Bunsen left QuickNode last October and decided to work on his new idea: AccessGrid, which builds APIs that companies can use to manage digital key fobs directly within Apple and Google’s wallet platforms.
“It works when your iPhone is locked, syncs automatically to your watch, and, in the case of iPhone, works even if your phone is dead,” Bunsen said. The company officially launched in April, and on Tuesday, announced a $4.4 million seed round led by Harlem Capital.
Right now, Bunsen said, the access control industry is stuck in the late 1990s. Many systems must operate on-premises and are disconnected from the cloud, or use unencrypted communications and ID card technologies that are easily hackable.
“AccessGrid replaces that with an API that issues uncloneable credentials using encrypted payloads that can be instantly revoked via the cloud,” Bunsen said. “We think it’s time to bring physical security systems up to 2025 standards.”
Cybersecurity is a big concern for a product like this, but Bunsen says the company uses “military-grade” encryption as well as dual-encryption. “We use multi-factor authentication for all server access, and other standard cybersecurity practices,” he continued.
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