UniKey receives $5 million

WINTER PARK, Fla.—UniKey, a company focused on keyless entry, in May added $5 million in funding, an extension on existing funding from various partners.

“Our investors decided to put a little bit of additional capital in. We brought in some money from two new strategic investors … they're private equity firms in the space,” Phil Dumas, UniKey's founder and CEO, told Security Systems News. The company's investors include Samsung, Asset Management Ventures and FF Venture Capital.

UniKey provides the mobile access technology behind smart locks such as Kevo by Kwikset, which can be unlocked by a smartphone. UniKey's goal is to replace the entire keychain by enabling more mobile access.

“We've raised several equity and debt rounds over the years. Our seed series was in July 2012 and was just over $1.1 million, we raised a Series A in April of 2015 for approximately $13 million (with converting debt) and added another $3 million in venture debt,” Dumas said. “Along with this most recent round, we've raised over $20 million in capital to-date.”

Previous funding helped the company to enter the commercial space. “We signed our first two commercial partners last year. We'll launch at least two commercial products this year with our partners,” Dumas said.

This latest funding increase will help the company to “expand on the momentum in the commercial and break into some newer markets like automotive,” Dumas said. The company also looks to expand its presence in the residential space.

Unikey currently has 15 partnerships and nearly 100 potential partnerships the company is in talks with. “We've seen a massive influx in new partnerships and business development in our space—the mobile key space,” Dumas noted.

Dumas said that the company is looking to expand. The company currently has about 50 employees and is looking to add at least five more software developers or engineers, he said.