SIRIN LABS, a British-Israeli start-up, has managed to raise a whopping $72 million in funding from private investors so that it can bring the "Rolls-Royce of smartphones" to consumers.
Dubbed the "Solarin," the robust Android-powered handset from the company is an amalgamation of basic smartphone and military features.
Founded in 2013, SIRIN LABS is the brainchild of Kenges Rakishev (a Kazakh entrepreneur), Tal Cohen (ex McKinsey consultant) and Moshe Hogeg (Israeli venture capitalist and brains behind Mobli and Yo).
It currently boasts 100 employees, out of which 75 percent are based in Sirin Labs' R&D base in Tel Aviv, Israel. The remaining employees are located across London, U.S., Switzerland and Sweden. The team hopes to perfectly combine expertise on design and security in order to get a good chunk of the secure phone market.
On Monday, the start-up revealed that it had successfully raised $72 million in private funds for launching the Solarin smartphone. The pumping of the new capital comes courtesy of Renren, a Chinese social networking platform, which joins the seed investment funders Singulariteam (owned by Hogeg) and Rakishev.
"Tel Aviv is a high-tech epicentre built around internet security, anti-virus software and cyber-defence technologies, and Sweden is a nucleus for some of the best telecomms engineers, designers and computer scientists in the world," Hogeg said.
"(Our) smartphone . . . brings the most advanced technology available - even if it is not commercially available - and combining it with almost military-grade security," said Hogeg, SIRIN LABS' co-founder and president.
Hogeg also shed some light on the mysterious smartphone's future and disclosed that the Solarin would debut in May. The company will also be launching a retail store next month in London. The Android smartphone will be sold worldwide through SIRIN LABS' online portal. The start-up also has plans of opening more stores spread across North America, Europe and Asia by end 2016.
An exact date for the Solarin's launch is not known; however, it is expected to be end May and not May 17 as previously assumed.
For those wondering how the Solarin would be priced, the handset will cost you a pretty penny as Hogeg has let on that it will retail around the $10,000 to $15,000 mark. The co-founder is optimistic that several executives in Europe and the U.S. will gravitate towards the smartphone and shell out the money because of the privacy settings it will bring.
In Hogeg's opinion, paying a high price for the Solarin to stay secure would be viewed as a better alternative to compromising privacy and data if one's phone is hacked.
While the Solarin will run on the Android OS, it will also be based on unnamed technology which is at least two to three years ahead of its time. Whether the Solarin will be able to carve a niche for itself - despite the steep price point - when it launches next month remains to be seen.
