About 18 months ago,
SurfEasy founder and CEO Chris Houston was looking for a product that would help him maintain privacy as he conducted business online from various different computers. "I found some things that you could hack together if you followed all 38 of the instructions," he says, "and I found some enterprise-level solutions for large businesses." What he didn't find was a simple plug-and-play way for regular people to protect their information. In an age where more and more business is conducted in the cloud or otherwise online. This struck him as an opportunity.
His attempt to fill that gap in the market launched at the high-profile
CES show in Las Vegas last month. "It was fantastic," Houston says. "We got a great reception from potential distributors and potential partners." The product is a USB key that contains its own browser. Plug it into any computer and you can access your own customized browser with your own passwords, cookies and bookmarks stored on it. Unplug the key, and all the information travels with you.
The concept has very quickly attracted financing, first from two private venture capitalists, and then from the
MaRS-affiliated provincial government Innovation Accelerator Fund. "We're pretty well funded now, and we're ready to take this thing out to market," Houston says.
The company, only officially incorporated a year ago, has already grown to 10 staff, "most of them development focused." Houston says that over the next six to 12 months, he expects a "big growth spurt." New staff are starting this month, more new positions are being advertised now, "and we've got more new positions coming."
Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Chris Houston, Founder and CEO, SurfEasy