Protean Payment wants to replace your credit cards, library cards and any card in your wallet with a swipe strip with one glass-card that does everything from the user's smartphone.
"We came up with technology that mimics credit cards and it communicates through Blue Tooth," Thiago Olson, CEO of
Protean Payment.
The glass card is a unique substance that is more rigid than plastic but more bendable than glass. When it's dropped it clangs like glass but doesn't shatter. Olson says it's the world's first glass card. The technology and the mobile app that comes with it is being developed in Ann Arbor's
Tech Brewery.
The nearly 1-year-old start-up and its team of eight people recently won the Products and Services category at the
Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition last month. The $25,000 cash prize will go into product development so Protean Payment can launch early next year.
"We're going for a nationwide launch in quarter 2 of next year," Olson says.
Source: Thiago Olson, CEO of Protean Payment
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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