KeyMe's New York 7-Eleven Kiosks will Never Let You Lose Keys Again
Long Island, New York startup company KeyMe is changing the locksmith industry by eliminating them completely and allowing everyday people to do it themselves.
KeyMe is a kiosk based system that stores a digital copy of your key, and if the original is lost, a new one is made on the spot.
The machines will be going up in five Manhattan 7-Elevens this week.
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"Three million people get locked out annually in New York City," founder and CEO of KeyMe Greg Marsh told the Daily News. "Most call an emergency locksmith and, on average, pay $150. I wanted to come up with a better solution."
He goes on to say that storing a key is free and creating a physical copy is only $19.99. A duplicate key is just $3.49 for a basic key, and $5.99 for a novelty key.
"KeyMe provides useful solutions to the common problem of key duplication through its unique, self-service offering," said Jens Molbak, Founder of Coinstar to the Wall Street Journal. "They are also bringing much needed innovation to the locksmith industry and I am excited for their future. KeyMe is very similar to Coinstar and I am delighted to be involved with the company as a board member and investor."
Understandably local locksmiths will not be thrilled by the new kiosks because if KeyME catches on, locksmiths will lose a lot of business.
Marsh tells the Daily News his machines are completely safe because they do not store addresses or data and are highly encrypted and require fingerprint authentication.
"We developed a proprietary technology that analyzes the key," Marsh said
Marsh launched the company last year and has raised $2.3 million with investors.
There is a rival company providing the same features, except key storing is called minuteKEY.
