Security startup appoints mobile-savvy CEO

LONDON – Verayo Inc., a company specializing in hardware-based security through the characterization of the unclonable attributes of ICs, has announced the appointment of Eric Duprat as chief executive officer.

Duprat has more than 20 years of global management experience and expertise in the wireless, security and payment systems industries, Verayo (San Jose, Calif.) said. His appointment is a fit with Verayo authentication technology that could be applied to mobile security and NFC payments, the company said. Former CEO Anant Agrawal will continue to work as an advisor to the company.

Prior to joining Verayo, Duprat was the general manager of mobile at PayPal, where he successfully led the company's mobile business unit from $7 million of payment volume in 2007 to a forecasted $2 billion in 2011.

"NFC technology is going to enable a new, level playing field worldwide. Just like e-commerce, this new playing field must be rooted on cost-effective and secure foundations to enable trusted applications including mobile payments, loyalty, coupons and more," said Srini Devadas, Professor and Associate Head of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and CTO and co-founder of Verayo, in a statement. "Verayo has received outstanding leadership and now as the company moves into the mobile security and commerce services market, Eric Duprat, with his rich experience and expertise in security and payments, will build on the success of Verayo's core technology and solutions and lead the company into its next phase."

"Mobile and NFC technologies stand at the intersection of the online world and the physical world, presenting us with new challenges and new opportunities. I look forward to driving the company's vision of becoming an essential technology for enabling trusted mobile devices and NFC commerce by ensuring the authenticity of the people and devices involved," said Duprat.

Verayo's patented Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) technology characterizes each chip by exploiting the random, unavoidable and unpredictable variations in the IC fabrication process. Since the manufacturing process variations cannot be controlled, modeled or replicated, each PUF-based IC is rendered physically unclonable.

Verayo, formed in 2005 as Pufco, has been on the Silicon 60, EE Times' list of emerging startups, since version 10.0 published in April 2010.


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