Built at Startup Weekend, LaunchKey's $750K round includes KIMA

Paris-based KIMA Ventures has taken part in security startup LaunchKey‘s $750K seed round, announced Sunday on Tech Cocktail. The Las Vegas-based startup, which also received financing from Ludlow Ventures & Prolific VC, with the round led by the VegasTechFund, aims to secure your accounts online while abolishing passwords. The startup allows enabled websites to allow users to login through their smartphone – users type in their email/username on LaunchKey-enabled websites, and the user receives a push notification on their phone, allowing them to verify the login. As Tech Cocktail put it “It takes a tad longer than entering a password, but aims to be many tads more secure.”
Originally conceived as a Startup Weekend project, the startup hopes to provide more security to user’s password by taking the login off of third party website on putting it on your phone. While password are easy to hack, the security of logging in with a physical key is second to none – especially considering you can, in the case of theft, deactivate your phone’s ability to log you in from a second device (similar to “Find my iPhone” and other servies).
The service is currently in private beta, and is running on a select set of websites; however, with plenty of people trying to solve the ‘password’ problem, I’m keen to see how this develops.
At LeWeb Paris earlier this month, Xavier Niel modestly boasted during an interview with Nest CEO Tony Fadell, that through KIMA Ventures and his personal investments, he has made 800+ investments – it seems he’s keeping up with the pace.