Two-factor authentication should be easy these days considering most people’s smartphones are no farther than arms reach away from each other. Finnish startup MePIN has been fooling around in this secure authentication sector for a few years, launching an API allowing developers to embed a “log me in with MePIN” button on their site, which shoots a push notification to the MePIN app on your phone for you to log in with a touch of a button, your personal pin, or fingerprint on supported devices.
A natural extension of their story was to do authentication for purchases, especially in the bitcoin and online gaming sectors where password protection is the only thing allowing you to hold onto your assets.
The company seems to have gotten the right attention from Mastercard, who has now invited them as one of the seven companies out of 300 applicants to their 12 month long accelerator program in Dublin. With Mastercard behind them, perhaps soon they can start branching out of niche areas and make two-factor authentication more mainstream.
To date, the company has received €1.9 million from Vision + and Vendep-investment funds, Tekes, as well as private investors from the United States and Hong Kong.
