Here’s the exclusive 16-slide pitch deck that startup Alcatraz AI used to raise $25 million to open doors with facial recognition

• Alcatraz AI makes The Rock, a small security system that uses biometrics and facial recognition.
• Its $25 million Series A was led by Almaz Capital and included investors in the US and Europe.
• This 16-slide deck showcased its platform and AI security device that works with badge readers.

Alcatraz AI, an artificial-intelligence-based security-tech company, has raised $25 million in Series A funding.

The funding round was led by the global venture-capital firm Almaz Capital and involved new investors, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Silverline Capital, and Endeavor Catalyst. Its existing investors, such as JCI Ventures, the venture-capital unit of the home-security company Johnson Controls, also joined in the round. 

Vince Gaydarzhiev, who founded the startup in 2016, told Insider the idea for its technology came from something he’d observed in his Big Tech workplaces. Gaydarzhiev is a former Apple engineer who started out developing Face ID for iPhones.

At Apple, and Nvidia before that, he also worked on teams integrating chips into products like Tesla’s Model S vehicles. During his time at these companies, Gaydarzhiev noticed the ubiquity of guards, who were often present on every floor and stationed by doors, sometimes on either side of them.

The notorious prison island in San Francisco Bay and its nickname inspired the names for Alcatraz AI and its signature device, The Rock, respectively, Gaydarzhiev said.

The device, roughly the size of an iPhone, recognizes faces through built-in sensors and cameras and can be mounted on the wall by secured doors, close to the badge readers that grant access. The Rock communicates with the badge reader to ensure that those passing through have satisfied multiple criteria, including facial recognition, for gaining entry — the equivalent of multifactor authentication to improve log-in security.

Alcatraz AI has offices in Bulgaria, where Gaydarzhiev is originally from, as well as in Cupertino, California, and Indianapolis. The Rock is made in a manufacturing facility in Plano, Texas. 

Gaydarzhiev said he’d embarked on a goal to “reimagine access control using face ID for physical environments for the physical world,” setting out in 2015 to find the support to materialize his vision. He attended conferences and hardware meetups and spoke with attorneys who connected him with angel investors as he built up the company in its early days, along with a software expert from Apple and a mechanical-industrial-design engineer.

“I started basically by asking whoever I knew in the Valley,” he said. “My advice to founders will be, always ask for introductions, especially the people you talk to.”