Contxto – There are a set of assumptions—one might even say prejudices—as to how the international economy works. Capital rich Europeans and Americans send their dollars and euros to the fertile, but cash-poor, “Global South”—ie, Latin America.
Well, not so fast, presumptuous Percival.
There was a twist for those who bank on those aforementioned stereotypes this week. This was because it was revealed that the previously undisclosed investors who pumped US$10 million into the San Francisco-based identity recognition startup, Incode, were led by none other than Mexico’s DILA Capital.
Incode does the rounds
For its part, in a recent press release, DILA Capital says it became interested in Incode since it was the first and most promising biometric, omnichannel identity recognition platform in the industry.
In plain English, that means that the startup focuses on providing facial recognition across a variety of previously disjointed services.
In a recent interview, Incode founder and CEO, Ricardo Amper, explained that he found that consumers “want is a seamless, consistent, and secure way to perform daily tasks—like access[ing] their ATM, mak[ing] payments, and access[ing] online accounts. Yet, what they get today is quite the opposite.”
Thus, the venture capital the company has just received will be going into further fine-tuning their artificial intelligence and machine learning technology. The point will be to create a balance between convenience and security in trying to get consumers to shift towards using biometric data (their face) as a primary form of identification.
They seem to be well on their way. Incode claims to have been able to substantially lower false-positives in the identification process. That means less strangely shaped potatoes recognized as your aunt Linda. This certainty is particularly useful for the banking, payments, and service industries that Incode works with.
Location, location, recognition
This American tech startup was born transcontinental, and a little bit of digging reveals why the lead investor for this Bay-area startup came from Mexico.
Firstly, it might have helped that Incode has offices in Mexico City, which in itself makes sense since the company’s CEO is a local of chilango stock.
It might also help that DILA Capital is also based in the Mexican capital, most likely aiding in the necessary shoulder-rubbing that precedes most investment talks.
Indeed, for all our chatter about the digital economy and remote workforces, there does seem to be quite a lot of heft left in the old-school “analog” way of doing business.
Who’d have thought that facial recognition would benefit so much from a good old fashioned face-to-face!
