HCS-U7

Investor Pitch — Seed Round

Slide 1

One-Liner

Authentication is broken by AI. We built a new security layer.

HCS-U7 is a cognitive authentication primitive
Designed to distinguish humans from AI agents at the protocol level
Works where CAPTCHA, MFA, and device fingerprinting now fail
Drop-in security layer for high-stakes authentication flows

Slide 2

The Problem

AI agents have rendered existing authentication mechanisms obsolete.

CAPTCHA: Solved by vision models in milliseconds at scale
MFA/OTP: Vulnerable to SIM-swap, phishing, and session hijacking
Device fingerprinting: Trivially spoofed by automation frameworks
Behavioral biometrics: Generative AI can now replicate human patterns
Fraud losses from automated attacks exceeded $48B globally in 2023
Attackers now deploy agent swarms that pass every human-detection gate

Slide 3

Core Insight

Cognition is the last non-forgeable signal.

AI can mimic outputs, but cannot replicate human cognitive processing
The timing, variability, and error-correction patterns of human cognition are measurable
These signals exist at a layer that LLMs and automation cannot yet simulate
Authentication must shift from "what you have" to "how you think"
Cognitive invariants are hardware-bound to human neurology
This is a defensible asymmetry: humans produce signals AI cannot fake cost-effectively

Slide 4

The Solution

HCS-U7: A cognitive authentication layer for AI-resistant security.

Embeds lightweight cognitive challenges into authentication flows
Measures response dynamics that encode human cognitive signatures
Produces a cryptographic attestation of human presence
Operates as a stateless verification primitive—no PII stored
Integrates at the API level with existing identity infrastructure
Designed for adversarial environments where bots are sophisticated

Slide 5

How It Works

Constant-time verification with anti-replay and risk decisioning.

Challenge Generation: Cryptographically unique per session, non-replayable
Signal Capture: Sub-second interaction yields cognitive timing data
Verification: Constant-time analysis prevents timing side-channels
Anti-Replay: Challenges expire and cannot be precomputed or reused
Risk Score: Binary human/non-human decision or continuous confidence score
Attestation: Signed token for downstream systems to consume

Slide 6

Defensibility

This is hard to copy correctly.

Security-first architecture: Constant-time operations, no data leakage
Cryptographic anti-replay prevents challenge farming
Signal extraction requires proprietary calibration across populations
Threshold tuning balances false-positive and false-negative rates for production
Provisional patent filed on cognitive verification protocol
18+ months of hardening against adversarial edge cases

Slide 7

Market Entry

Cybersecurity infrastructure first. Fintech compliance second.

Initial target: Security-first platforms facing bot/automation attacks
Wedge: Account takeover prevention, fraud-sensitive flows
Expansion: PSD2 Strong Customer Authentication compliance in EU fintech
Adjacent: Identity providers, zero-trust vendors, API security platforms
Go-to-market: Developer-first SDK, self-serve trial, enterprise contracts
Land in security teams, expand to compliance and fraud prevention

Slide 8

Traction

Execution signals.

Production-ready core verification engine
Comprehensive test coverage including adversarial scenarios
Security hardening: Constant-time operations, input validation, anti-replay
Architecture reviewed against OWASP and authentication best practices
Documentation and integration guides complete
Early conversations with security-focused design partners

Slide 9

Why Now

The window is open. It will not stay open.

GPT-4V and successors have broken visual CAPTCHA at scale
AI agent frameworks (AutoGPT, Claude agents) are proliferating
Regulatory pressure: PSD2, NIST 800-63, upcoming AI liability rules
Enterprises are actively seeking next-generation authentication primitives
Incumbents (CAPTCHA vendors, legacy MFA) are patching, not rebuilding
12-18 month window before AI catches up to any new primitive

Slide 10

The Ask

Seed Round: $2.5M

Use of funds:
- Security engineering team expansion (50%)
- Adversarial testing and red-team engagements (20%)
- Design partner pilots and integration support (20%)
- Patent prosecution and IP protection (10%)
Milestones:
- 3 production design partners within 12 months
- SOC 2 Type II certification
- First enterprise contract
Long-term vision:
- Become the authentication primitive that survives the AI era
- Standard layer for human verification across identity infrastructure