I Think Security has taken a further step into the consumer market with a Kickstarter campaign to fund its latest product: the Qi4BOX, which secures Dropbox users’ files.
The $30,000 crowdfunding campaign, launched Tuesday, will allow the Kitchener-based company to gauge demand for and scale production of the Qi4BOX, which resembles a USB stick.
CEO Cedric Jeannot, who founded I Think Security at Waterloo’s Accelerator Centre in 2010, said his new product wraps government-grade security around Dropbox data without affecting the experience for the file-storage service’s 100 million-plus users.
He turned to Kickstarter, which launched in Canada Sept. 9, to “test the market as well as get some publicity ” for Qi4BOX. “We know people wanted it; we built it because people asked for it, but it was more to see how badly they want it.”
The product is fully developed and will be released early next year, said Jeannot, who holds a PhD in applied security from the University of Louisville. The Kickstarter campaign, which runs until Nov. 1, takes pre-orders for the Qi4BOX for a minimum $100 contribution for the first 200 funders. The amount increases to $200 and beyond after that.
The Qi4BOX follows previous product releases from the company including the Qi, (pronounced: key) which protects data on any computer or mobile phone; BoomerangDoc, which allows a user to securely share a document and then retrieve it without the recipient being able to save or share it; and PinFactor, an authentication service that removes the need for passwords to access favourite websites.
Kickstarter, based in New York, earned fame in 2012 due to another company with Waterloo Region roots – Pebble – whose smartwatch for iPhone and Android raised a record $10.3 million in 37 days, more than 100 times its $100,000 goal.
I Think Security graduated the Accelerator Program earlier this month, and has moved into new offices in Kitchener.
