PixelPin

Market

Target market

According to Gartner, in 2014 worldwide information security market growth will accelerate to 8.6% and exceed $73 billion. We believe this growth will continue due to:
1. Cyber security threats continue to rise.
2. The internet of things will exacerbate the problem, with millions of new devices coming on line.
3. Cyber security is now a problem for everyone as more people use online services.

The authentication market that is addressable by PixelPin is set to be worth over $10B according to Gartner.

Although PixelPin is able to provide its services to all online vertical markets across the globe we are focused on FinTech and banking, which have the biggest problem in this area. This evidenced by our section into the FinTech Innovation Lab run by Accenture last year. The selection process was carried out by the banks them selves (12 major banks). This has been followed up by continued dialogue with UK banks, challenger banks, and banks from overseas.

Over the next year we are concentrating on medium sized FinTech Companies, Opportunities brought to us from BT and Telefonica, and we have some more social sites that we are working with mainly in the areas of photography. We are also continuing the conversations and opportunities with Banks, though we are no expecting to close these this year. We have developed our first Fast Identity Online (FIDO) alliance version of the Android App and this App needs to go through the certification processes which has recently been offered to companies.

We have found the strength of PixelPin's simple user interface continues to make it stand out, and any company that requires a cross platform 'what you know' solution is a target for PixelPin. We have in bound interest from companies across the EU, South Korea and the US.

There are over 500 million sites with password logins at the moment, so the market size for PixelPin is immense.

Characteristics of target market

In the past 2 years there has been an increasing amount of media publicity on businesses that have been hacked and several famous brands have recently disclosed breaches which placed their customers at risk and damaged the businesses reputation. There has been a large surge of users conducting their affairs on mobile. Tablets and Mobile are becoming the predominant source of eCommerce revenue for businesses and there is a lot of interest in usable secure mobile solutions. The eCommerce and financial markets are very competitive, and are keen to adopt new technologies that will give them a competitive advantage.

The mobile authentication market alone is valued at $760M in 2014 by Goode Intelligence. We have found that businesses currently tend to purchase authentication products such as tokens which are expensive and are looking at alternative solutions to passwords and PINS.The penetration of tokens is largely confined to the banks, and they know that users do not like them.

Marketing strategy

PixelPin has so far developed an impressive pipeline with only a very small team, using primarily networking as the main way of reaching out to potential customers. Having spent 2 years listening and understanding the market we now have a practical go to market strategy.

The work we did with the banks in the FinTech Innovation Lab last year showed us that we needed to work with well known partners in order to gain trust and credibility. We have seen that since we have started working with BT this has helped a lot, and they are now introducing us to to their own customers. We are now reaching out to new partners, in the UK and overseas to replicate that success.

We are focusing on the markets where social logins do not go have a presence, i.e. FinTech and large brands. By targeting this group it is allowing us to make good penetration and to get known. We continue to use L39 in One Canada Sq as a meeting point for these companies. Juhi, our business developer was recognised as one of the 100 women in FinTech and is now well respect in this space. The PixelPin founders have continued to speak and also be recognised in the security space.

As PixelPin's name becomes more recognised over the next year we will also use social media campaigns and thought leadership events (one planned for Sept) to reach out to a wider customer base.

PixelPin will recruit a sales person this year to further accelerate the pipeline and deal flow. We will also appointed Non Exec Directors in August who have many contacts and reach into our target markets.

Looking further ahead there are a number of initiatives such as the Government Open Identity Exchange that we have already registered interest in that would give PixelPin reach. We will also start to concentrate on sites with large numbers of users such as photography sites so that we reach a threshold of users that will allow us to generate firm Return on Investment metrics.

Competition strategy

Authentication uses at least one of the following: 'something you know' e.g. passwords, 'something you are' e.g. fingerprints and 'something you have' e.g. a hardware dongle. PixelPin replaces passwords and PINs as a 'something you know' solution. PixelPin delivers a cross device, private, and secure solution that keeps the business in control of its authentication. New authenticators are arriving in the 'something you are' domain, and they suffer from the same problems. Registration is the biggest problem of biometrics, if someone registers a device as you, using their biometrics you are locked out of your accounts. This is a big problem for banks. Biometrics on phones are not that secure, not always reliable, cost money, and are not liked by everyone because of the doubts about privacy. Device authentication is generally considered to be a second factor, as using your device you login with as the the login is a weak solution. Despite these new solutions, PixelPin is the only viable 'something you know' alternative to passwords. In the FinTech/Banking industry we find that social logins are generally not used, and when tried have limited adoption. Users do not trust social logins for financial transactions. The feedback we are getting from our customers is that FinTech and banks value a 'something you know' authentication, and PixelPin can reach all their customers very quickly.

This is a quote from the CEO of DashLane Emmanuel Schalit made on the 7th July to Computer Weekly: Schalit predicts that whoever solves the problem of identity in future, it will not be one of the technology giants.
“Consumers are fundamentally platform-agnostic and those that live only in the Apple world or only in the Google world represent a very small minority. Identity is a cross-platform problem, and I predict it will be solved by an emerging player that is not constrained by a single environment or platform,” he said.