If you’ve ever worked in a secure office, it’s highly likely you’ve lost your key card and been forced to beg the “open-sesame” Gods (AKA, your office manager) to let you in to your office.
A new startup called Openpath wants to save you the office manager stink eye. The Culver City-based office security tech firm launched on Tuesday, helped by a $7m seed round led by the founders’ own personal mattress money.
Turns out Openpath’s co-founders, James Segil and Alex Kazerani got filthy stinkin’ rich after selling EdgeCast Networks (a content delivery network they co-founded in 2006) to Verizon for $350m.
Ahh, nothing like using millions of your own dollars to pursue one’s passions of… creating a new way to open a door?
But these days in tech, “boring” is the new “sexy,” and companies are coming out of the woodwork to create practical smart gadgets like surveillance doorbells for the home.
According to TechCrunch, Segil says that employees have “come to expect convenience in the workplace,” and it’s time to take some of the focus off of “smart” homes and move it to the office.
So how does it work? Over the course of the last few years, the team developed — and patented — hardware and software that allows employees to open secure doors through the company’s Bluetooth compatible SurePath Mobile technology right from their smartphones.
What’s next? ‘Smart’ employees?