imgres-11The Austin Technology Incubator at The University of Texas announced that Toopher has officially graduated into its Incubator as an IT portfolio company.
Last December, Toopher closed a $2 Million Series A round of funding from investors including Alsop Louie Partners of San Francisco.
Toopher was started in 2011 by Evan Grim, a University of Texas PhD student in software engineering, and Josh Alexander, an adjunct professor teaching financial derivatives at UT’s McCombs School of Business. They developed security software that authenticates a person’s identity from a smartphone using its location-based technology so that they can log into online accounts. The software uses two forms of authentication to verify the user to prevent identity theft and fraud.
“Toopher is doing something that is very technically difficult, but is very easy for customers to integrate into their system, and is very simple to use,” Stewart Alsop, partner, Alsop Louie, said in a news release. “That’s what we look for: entrepreneurs that have solved a really difficult problem and have the opportunity to grow really fast.”.
“Toopher is revolutionizing authentication and finally making security work for us, utilizing the technology already in our pockets in ways mirroring our everyday activities and interactions” Kyle Cox, director of ATI’s IT/Wireless and Longhorn Startup Development Portfolios said in a news release. “It is great for Austin that this game-changing technology is coming from our students and faculty at the University of Texas, and we are excited for ATI to be part of the continued growth of Toopher.”
In 2012 cybercrime caused over $114 billion in losses and affected more than 550 million users with the bulk of those victims coming from the U.S.