With the emergence of flexible workspaces, companies are increasingly adopting smartphone-based authentication to allow employees to log in and out. recently questionnaireAlmost two in five firms said they allow staff to use their phones to access office buildings.

Benefited sellers like Nimet SwiftConnectsells a platform for managing access to physical offices. Chris Kruger and Matt Kopel founded the company in 2020 after selling their previous company, Waltz, to WeWork in 2019.

Kopel says the idea for SwiftConnect came to him while he was at WeWork, where he worked briefly after the Waltz acquisition. He believed that the on-demand, mobile-centric access control that WeWork wanted would become the standard for many offices in the future.

SwiftConnect’s platform is designed to abstract away access management for office spaces. Using the service, employees can add their employee badges to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet on their smartphones. Once the digital ID card is added, it allows them to enter their building and/or shared amenity areas protected by NFC door locks.

Administrators can ensure employees can only enter approved rooms by editing credentials from a control panel.

SwiftConnect isn’t the first company to launch a mobile-centric access control management platform. open roadKisi and Verkada, among others, offer software to replace physical access cards with personal devices.

But Kruger claims SwiftConnect is one of the few systems that doesn’t require companies to install new reader hardware. Kruger says this has helped him land clients like Silverstein Properties, which owns 7 World Trade Center in New York.

SwiftConnect, which claims its system operates in more than 100 million square feet of office space, said last year that it did not expect to need to raise additional capital “unless strategic opportunities arise.”

It seems these strategic opportunities presented themselves. This month, SwiftConnect raised $37 million in a Series B round led by Quadri Ventures with participation from HID, Egis Capital Partners, Klingenstein Fields Advisors, Crow Holdings, JLL Spark, Navitas Capital and Spring Rock Capital.

“In order to address potential downsides, we decided to raise sufficient funds to weather the upcoming economic storms,” Kruger said.

Kopel said that the new money, which brings the startup’s total capital to $74 million, will be used to grow the company’s team of 135 people and expand into new geographies. SwiftConnect currently has offices in Montreal and Stamford.

Strategic acquisitions are also on the table; Last year, SwiftConnect used some of its war chest to acquire access control firm Detrios.

“SwiftConnect expands our expertise into the high-end, multifamily rental market and has completed deployments in this area,” Kruger said. “We help tenants provide self-service, unrestricted access to parking lots, buildings, turnstiles, office rooms and amenity areas across their property portfolios.”

While SwiftConnect is growing at a healthy pace, it also faces potential downsides. Mobile-centric access control systems can leave employees in a difficult situation when their smartphones are turned off. Systems like SwiftConnect have also raised privacy concerns.

Information from the Business Insider piece Companies including PwC, Amazon and Goldman Sachs use badges to record employees’ workplaces. By the way According to a recent survey, 62% of organizations plan to use badge swipes to track engagement.

It will be SwiftConnect’s job to show that it can provide convenience without unnecessary oversight.

“Our platform is built on privacy by design, where we collect the minimum amount of user information necessary to operate the service,” Kruger said. “Our customers have full control over the user data we process on their behalf.”