Nok Nok Labs, Security Startup With Clarke, Raises $15M In Venture Capital

Internet security startup Nok Nok Labs, whose directors include former White House security adviser Richard Clarke, said it had raised $15 million in venture capital financing for product development. The company is developing technologies to allow secure identification.

Nok Nok said it’s trying to devise a united authentication infrastructure using an online secure transaction protocol that will deal with new problems that arise from using passwords.

The 4-month-old company based in Palo Alto, Calif., said its new investors are ONSET Ventures and Doll Capital Management, a private equity firm with assets exceeding $2 billion.

Nok Nok Labs also said it will be a member of the FIDO Alliance (Fast iDentity Online) to work on online authentication with others including China’s Lenovo Group (PINK:LNVGY), the No. 1 PC maker, the PayPal unit of eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY), and German chipmaker Infineon Technologies (ETR:IFXA).

FIDO’s president is Michael Barrett, Pay Pal’s chief information security officer, who said the alliance will support “a full range” of security solutions including biometrics, security tokens and one-time passwords, as part of its development.

Nok Nok Labs’ CEO is Phillip Dunkelberger, who was CEO of PGP Corp. before it was acquired by Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ:SYMC) in 2010. Besides Clarke, who was cybersecurity adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, other directors include Barrett, computer pioneer Carl Amdahl as well as Howard Bain, a former Symantec CFO.