Carnegie Mellon Alumni Start Mobile Security Company
In April 2008, MS Software Engineering graduate students Bertand Damiba, Rom Lemarchand, Fernando Guayasamin and Sarah Laiwala were teamed together in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship course at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley. The class, taught by Professor Stuart Evans, introduced the students to local VCs, entrepreneurs and angel investors who served as guest speakers for this elective course in the master’s software program. As part of the curriculum, students created a software product and business plan which then was critiqued and judged by the guest speakers. Damiba and his classmates’ team, or “VoiceMobile”, as they called themselves, decided to use their expertise in the mobile and speech spaces, and combined the two to center their company around voice authentication on mobile devices and remote management of these mobile devices. VoiceMobile won the semester-culminating business plan competition, and the four grad students walked away with sound advice and bragging rights.
Shortly after graduation in August 2008, Professor Evans approached the four alumni and suggested they consider taking their business plan and starting a company. Laiwala explains, “Right after that class ended, we made efforts in that direction in terms of laying out a high-level architecture, but we were also tired from two years of part-time grad school and full-time working and needed a couple months off. After a couple months just to re-energize ourselves, in January 2009, we picked up the pace – Professor Evans proposed participating in the McGinnis Venture Competition in 2009. So, we found two additional founders to help us move quickly, Sunil Palacherla and Nadeem Laiwala, and make this start-up a reality. From January to March, we worked on our VoiceLock prototype, and we still can't believe we were able to get something coded and working on the BlackBerry Bold AND Curve in just two months. VoiceLock is a voice biometric product that voice authenticates mobile devices and sensitive applications like VPN and banking applications.”
Team SecuriMobile entered the competition with 30 other vying business and management school companies, and placed second in the qualifying rounds of the Technology Track. Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School team, Dynamics, won the Technology Track. SecuriMobile ultimately remained semi-finalists, however being in the competition helped them find a focus and refine their business strategy.
Soon after the competition ended, the team incorporated their company, SecuriMobile, Inc., with VoiceLock for BlackBerry Bold & Curve, and soon to be on iPhone and Android.
Damiba attributes much of the success of their start-up to the entrepreneurial culture of Carnegie Mellon’s Silicon Valley campus and the learn-by-doing nature of the curriculum. “After all,” Damiba says, “our business plan was initially created in the context of an entrepreneurship class here. The MS in Software Engineering program at the Silicon Valley campus not only provided us with the right skill set to start a tech venture, but also gave us access to a network of advisors, employees and investors in the extended Carnegie Mellon family whose support has been key to our progress so far.”
Professor Evans commends the team on their efforts and looks forward to their success. “From the start, the Securimobile team had great working chemistry. With complimentary backgrounds, they were incredibly hard-working, and had an infectious passion for the technology. The team's willingness to recalibrate as realities changed was a clear signal of their entrepreneurial disposition. As a result, Securimobile is now focused on a big market opportunity that is about to experience explosive growth.”
For more about SecuriMobile, go to http://www.securimobile.com/.
Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley offers master’s degrees in Software Engineering and Software Management, on a full-time or part-time basis. To find out more about the programs, please visit: http://www.cmu.edu/silicon-valley/academics/silicon-valley/index.html.