In this article
A message from Tina D’Agostin, CEO & Co-Founder, Alcatraz
Eight years ago, I met Vince Gaydarzhiev when our paths crossed at JCI, and he told me he had built something game-changing. A new kind of biometric. A new approach to physical security. Honestly? I was skeptical.
I had spent decades watching biometrics get oversold and underdelivered. Fingerprint readers. Iris scans. Facial recognition systems that stored everything and didn’t perform. The promises were always grand. The outcomes were always the same: unhappy customers, failed deployments, and my team ripping systems out of buildings.
So when Vince asked me to visit the Alcatraz office in Cupertino, I agreed — but I wasn’t holding my breath.
Then I walked up to the Rock. My face authenticated. The door opened.
I thought “It’s MAGIC!” — and those are still the words on the lips of every first-timer, ten years on.
That moment was life-changing. Today, as we announce our $50 million Series B — bringing our total raised to over $100 million — I keep returning to it. Because what Vince had built wasn’t just a better product. It was proof that you could secure even the world’s most critical spaces without compromising the people inside them.
Physical security has never been more top of mind — for governments, enterprises, and the employees who simply want to get to work safely. At the same time, your face, personal data privacy has never been more at risk. Most security systems force a trade-off between the two. Alcatraz was built on the belief that true security doesn’t require sacrificing individual privacy.
No photographs. No fingerprint, hand, or iris scans. No personal data stored in the cloud. We are the Face ID of physical security.
Our privacy-first, 100% anonymous facial authentication protects access without ever storing personal identifiable information. An employee should never have to surrender their personal data to enter a building. With Alcatraz, they never do. Privacy first. Last. Always.
We launched commercially just months before the world shut down. We scaled through a pandemic, through a seismic shift in how organizations think about workplace safety, and through a threat landscape that has grown more complex every year. Through all of it, our values held.
Today, Rock X is validated through independent testing by the National Safe Skies Alliance, funded by the FAA. The world’s most secure spaces — major international airports, critical energy infrastructure, AI data centers, top universities, stadiums, and professional sports organizations — trust Alcatraz to protect their people and their facilities. That trust is not something we take lightly. It is something we earn, every single day.
As we mark both our 10-year anniversary and this Series B milestone, I want to speak directly to the people who made it possible.
To our investors: Thank you for believing in what many once questioned. Your conviction built this company.
To our customers and partners: Your trust is our greatest validation. We will keep earning it.
To the Alcatraz team: You make it happen — every deployment, every customer conversation, every day. This moment is yours.
— Tina D’Agostin
CEO & Co-Founder, Alcatraz
