Startup Profile: Better Bluetooth from InfiniteKey

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Bluetooth is being pushed to the max as more devices require low-power connectivity. The wireless standard is inside everything from door locks to headphones, and companies like Apple or hub-maker Cassia are trying to make it even better.

InfiniteKey hopes to join their ranks with a technology that determines exactly where a Bluetooth device is. High levels of accuracy, plus some understanding of other devices in the vicinity, can ensure that Bluetooth becomes so accurate it could be used to unlock your car or exactly pinpoint a person in a building.

Kevin Virta, CEO of InfiniteKey, says the company formed two and half years ago hoping to find a way to let car makers take advantage of Bluetooth in people’s phones to unlock their car doors. However, the technology isn’t secure enough on its own.

Thus, InfiniteKey puts additional sensors around each vehicle to help create unique signatures keyed to special software running on someone’s handset. The result is a virtual key that is so refined it can determine if the person holding the phone is inside or outside the car.

This comes in handy because no one would really want their car to auto unlock when they are inside the vehicle. Or even more pressing, if they were inside their house and checking to see who was outside the door.

Virta says the company is talking to lock manufacturers about better Bluetooth locks, auto makers about using phones as a key fob (even when connectivity is absent) and even with office furniture makers about using Bluetooth to authenticate people in workplaces.

The company spun out of SpinDance (which is a sponsor of the newsletter and podcast) and is now looking for $4 million in seed funding that it hopes to close this May.