PopID is gaining traction with its biometric payment and access control platform, and attributing much of the credit to college students in southern California.
The Pasadena-based startup says that more than a hundred restaurants and retail brands now support PopPay, a platform that enables end users to make purchases with a face scan. It’s the kind of ‘naked payments’ platform that allows transactions to be made without a payment card, cash, phone, or any other hardware token.
PopID adds that its overarching platform, which includes PopPay and its face-based access control system, PopEntry, now has about 70,000 registered users, and has performed more than four million authentications.
That success is thanks in large part to PopEntry’s use in student housing on college campuses, according to PopID Chief Operating Officer Yale Goldberg.
“Students first enroll for the PopID service in order to get into their housing facilities without needing a key card,” he explained in a statement. “Once those students learn that they can use the same service to purchase food and other goods without having to pay on the day of the purchase, they get addicted to PopPay as a more convenient, fun and financially flexible way to pay.”
While PopID credits its growing user base to this student-driven trend, the latter was enabled in part by recent inflows of venture capital, with PopID having closed a $10 million Series B funding round earlier this summer that featured investments from SoftBank subsidiary Japan Computer Vision.
Now, PopID wants to keep the trend going. Whereas its network is currently concentrated in southern California, PopID says it plans to bring its platform to college campuses nationwide over the next year and a half.
Japan Computer Vision CEO Andrew Schwabecher, meanwhile, sees even greater opportunities over the longer term. “We are excited about the future and the opportunity to expand the system internationally,” he said.
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