Fuel Accelerator grad relocates from Atlanta, eyes growth

Dexter Caffey, CEO and founder of software development company Smart Eye Technology Inc., participated in the fifth annual artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) cohort of Startup Junkie’s Fuel Accelerator. The 12-week program started this past August.

Fuel is a program directed by the Startup Junkie Foundation of Fayetteville. It is organized in partnership with Catapult Consulting, led by Tom Douglass, former director of emerging technology at Walmart Inc., and with programming support from GrowthX, the Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund. The program offers hands-on education, workshops and support to guide companies toward becoming “enterprise-ready.”

In a recent interview, Caffey said he saw enough of Northwest Arkansas during the Fuel Accelerator to realize he needed to be here, so he has relocated from Atlanta. He said his wife, an English as a second language teacher, will join him this summer once the school year ends.

“There is a powerful ecosystem here,” Caffey said.

Caffey hosted a meet-and-greet ribbon cutting on Tuesday (March 19) at the Ledger office building’s second-floor game room in downtown Bentonville. He also announced Smart Eye’s first enterprise customer — United Bank, a $270 million asset lender based in Springdale.

“Northwest Arkansas cares about business growth,” Caffey said. “Companies want to help you with other companies they do business with. That’s the ecosystem I’m referring to. It’s built into the culture here, unlike Atlanta.”

Smart Eye is an all-in-one screen privacy and file-sharing platform that protects confidential information while preventing cyber fraud and data leaks. The technology helps secure documents by using biometrics such as iris, face, fingerprint and voice recognition to open documents.

Smart Eye also uses continuous facial recognition to ensure that the authorized recipient is the only person who can always view documents on their screen.

Before focusing on his first entrepreneurial venture, Caffey started Caffey Investment Group, an alternative investment firm, in 1998 when he was 25. During a business trip to Israel in 2017, he attended a cybersecurity conference where he noticed open documents on a fellow attendee’s laptop screen, sparking the idea for Smart Eye.

Mobile versions are available for Android and iOS. It’s also available for Chrome browsers, and plans are to expand to other browsers.

Caffey said Smart Eye caters to businesses of all sizes and anyone who wants extra privacy and security regarding their digital documents. Businesses in the financial services industry and healthcare companies fit the company’s ideal customer profile.

Based on the company’s growth, Smart Eye has a team of 10, Caffey plans to hire “between 25 and 75” people within the upcoming year. He has raised about $6.5 million, primarily through friends and family.

“We do have one private equity investor,” he said.

Since the company had just signed its first enterprise client, Caffey said Smart Eye’s revenue was minimal and declined to disclose specific figures.

“We’re still eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches right now,” he joked.