NFC Times Exclusive – Mobile security company Trustonic says its two remaining owners are increasing funding for the joint venture, and it plans to get into new markets, as the company seeks to capitalize on growing interest in securing mobile payment services, among other applications.
Trustonic declines to release the amount of additional funding from owners ARM and Gemalto or disclose what it plans to do with the money, but it comes amid the divestiture, in March, of the third company that formed the joint venture in 2012, Giesecke & Devrient.
It seems likely some of the new funding will go for covering existing ongoing operations, since it’s improbable that Trustonic is turning a profit after less than three years of operations. The JV has deals with handset maker Samsung and other partners to use its implementation of the trusted execution environment, or TEE, on processor chips in smartphones, but there are believed to be few major rollouts yet. The Samsung deal involves providing TEE technology for Samsung's enterprise security system, Samsung Knox, and almost certainly for Samsung Pay.
