The journey of a Visionary Vijay Balasubramaniya

As a part of his Ph.D. research at Georgia Institute of Technology, Vijay Balasubramaniyan was trying to find a solution to the most simple yet global problem- how to track the location of an unknown mobile number calling you? Based on technology developed in his research, he co-founded Pindrop Security with Paul Judge. A security solutions company that uses “acoustic fingerprint: detection techniques to detect and stop phone-based fraud. Prior to starting his own company, Balasubramaniyan worked in various engineering and research roles with Google, Intel, Siemens and IBM research.

Key Goal

One of the biggest challenge faced by financial services companies is the dependency on caller ID alone to ensure the legitimate identity of callers availing transaction-based services. However, with the advent of technology spoofing caller ID is a child’s play, raising a major security concern. Several large companies are meeting these security issues with voiceprints capture and tracking the numbers in a list, but those efforts get wasted with frauds using devices to change their voices. To combat such problems, Pindrop Security employs its phone printing process that can decipher the tiniest details of a phone call like audio cutoff frequency and trace the fraud calls.

The journey

Vijay Balasubramaniyan embarked upon this climb to innovation in the spring of 2011 when Georgia Tech VentureLab agreed to. That very spring, he bagged an acceptance into the introductory class for Flashpoint that expanded the founder’s knowledge on entrepreneurship in the technical field. The early years of the company include a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and $150,000 funding from NSF.

VentureLab also introduced Pindrop to the investors across Atlanta and infosec community including Georgia Research Alliance(GRA). The company further achieved success in obtaining office space in the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) incubator in Technology Square. In the video below, Vijay Balasubramaniyan explains how his company can once again bring back the faith in mobile phones.

Written By

Aparna Growth Strategist

Aparna is a growth specialist with handsful knowledge in business development. She values marketing as key a driver for sales, keeping up with the latest in the Mobile App industry. Her getting things done attitude makes her a magnet for the trickiest of tasks. In free times, which are few and far between, you can catch up with her at a game of Fussball.

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