By L. Samuel Pfeifle

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—CoreStreet got a boost for its converged access control solution this week with a strategic investment and technology advancement agreement from In-Q-Tel, the investment firm affiliated with the U.S. federal intelligence community, chartered by Congress. The funding, the amount of which was not disclosed, will be used to enhance CoreStreet's Card-Connected technology, which "uses strong cryptography to extend central access control to standalone doors and mobile locks, at a fraction of the cost of wired doors," according to a statement by CoreStreet chief executive officer Chris Broderick.

In an interview with Security Systems News, Broderick said the relationship with In-Q-Tel started with preliminary discussions over the past two years, but started in earnest in the late summer of 2007, when In-Q-Tel contacted CoreStreet about acting as an accelerator for its physical security access solution. "The converged idea was very compelling to them," said Broderick. "We provide a set of technologies that make smart cards work at very large scale, both providing logical control for everyday usage and facility access. The combined set of technologies transforms the credential into an interoperable platform."

Basically, within a CoreStreet-enabled access control system, standalone electronic locks and physical access control systems communicate by reading and writing digitally signed data (privileges and logs) to and from smart cards. In this way, cardholders become an extension of the physical access network where cards, instead of wires, carry information to and from the standalone locks.

The flagship Card-Connected products are a series of locks, such as the Kaba E-Plex 5900, that authenticate electronic credentials and enforce the enterprise's policies. These locks ensure the enterprise can audit access to physical resources, manage the locks efficiently, and enforce policies in remote locations without dispatching support personnel or installing network connectivity.

"CoreStreet is a critical addition to our strategic investment portfolio for security technologies," said Ben Levitan, partner at In-Q-Tel, in a statement. "As part of our charter, In-Q-Tel evaluates innovative technology advances with specific applicability to the challenges facing the U.S. intelligence community ... We are impressed with [CoreStreet's] creative solutions to physical security challenges and with the emerging eco-system supporting their innovative solutions."

And while In-Q-Tel will provide CoreStreet and its channel partners with access to government work, Broderick noted, "The accelerator puts us in a great position to get the message out into the marketplace about the commercial viability of this technology, and that's resonated with our partners in the early going."