Ignis Smart Gun

Ignis Kinetics is developing user-authorized firearm technology, commonly referred to as a smart gun. Gun violence costs US taxpayers and companies approximately $230B annually and is responsible for over 30,000 American deaths every single year. The majority of these deaths can be avoided through the use of user-authorized firearms, wherein only authorized user(s) can unlock the weapon. Since creating a retrofit for existing firearms is not scalable to national or global levels and thus, has little utility, we believe the solution to this problem is by creating an entirely new class of firearms, thereby transitioning the rest of the gun industry to secure firearms. Our approach is to first focus on private security, where there is a unique opportunity to address their corporate liability with their existing service weapons. Once we have proven a market in that segment, our intention is to expand to law enforcement and ultimately consumers.

Gun violence costs the US economy over $230,000,000,000 every year while claiming over 30,000 lives. In terms of fatalities, the only bigger problem Americans have is heart disease and and auto accidents. In terms of dollars collectively spent responding retroactively to this problem, we only spend more money on Medicaid and dealing with the medical consequences of smoking. On average, each gun death costs our society about $6m. 

Studies have shown that over half of these cases can be avoided by securing the firearm, especially cases that occur in the home. Given that most gun owners (not just in the US) are not inclined to put an external lock on their weapon, the only realistic solution to this problem that bypasses all discussions around additional regulation and unreliable bio-metric readers, is to create a new class of intelligent firearms in the market that lock or unlock based on passive RFID tokens being worn by the user(s).

Given that gun violence is one of the leading causes of injury and death in US communities, we believe that user-authorized firearms are key to solving the biggest upstream contributions to gun violence, which is unsecured access to firearms.

We are serving everyone who is directly and indirectly affected by gun violence. Our initial geography served will be the United States, where the majority of the problem is, but we will focus on international markets once we commercialize our solution domestically. We have been engaging both private security firms, and US law enforcement entities to better craft our solution's approach through feedback meetings and surveys. The initial market segment we are serving in the US is private security and law enforcement. We are focusing on these 'enterprise' markets first because there is a unique business need that can be addressed through their insurance and corporate risk management practices, and because they bring an economies of scale to the solution that will then enable commercialization of the US consumer market, where the core of this Gordian knot will be solved. 

Our solution is a catalyst to begin the transition to secure firearms through the use of an RFID-authenticated 9mm user-authorized firearm (UAF). 

Upon an authenticated user (through an RFID ring or bracelet he or she is wearing) picking up the firearm, our solution unlocks instantly. Upon putting the firearm down, in a holster, or the solution losing "sight" of its RFID token, the firearm locks instantly. This ensures that only the person(s) authorized to use the weapon, is able to do so.

Commonly referred to as a 'smart gun', our patented solution to this problem is unique in both how we are unlocking/locking our firearm, and in how are storing power within the firearm itself. Instead of locking/unlocking parts of the firearm that are susceptible to mechanical failure (sear, trigger, other linkages in between trigger and slide) through poor design techniques, we are using our patented fork-style lock to secure the firing pin in a near 360 degree rotation. And because the lock is fork-style (as opposed to a pin through the rotating firing pin, which is very prone to fatal misalignment), our locking technique guarantees that the pin is always secured when the lock is engaged. Additionally, we are using a shielded solenoid actuator to actuate the lock. This is important for two key reasons. Solenoid actuators have been in use since the beginning of electricity. They are a tried and tested approach to actuate things. This is true for both giant industrial applications that occur in power plants, and micro-applications that occur on the circuit board level. Secondly, our design incorporates a shielded solenoid, such that it is impervious to outside magnetic interference, whether intentional or not. Lastly, our patented solution's primary power supply is the magazine, thus ensuring easily re-loadable and rechargeable energy. 

Combined, these unique approaches ensures ultimate redundancy, ease of use, and lowest barriers to mass adoption across the populations we are seeking to serve.

Our solution is innovative because of how we are storing energy for our device, where and how we are locking the device, and how we are going to commercialize the technology for mass adoption in the consumer markets.

We are using advanced RFID, supercapacitors and lithium-ion technology to bring our solution to life. 

Instead of focusing on the consumer-market first, we are focusing on private security and law enforcement initially as a risk-management solution to drive down their costs of liability insurance. Our business model relies on our unique design and the reliable approach of RFID authentication combined with supercapacitors and advanced energy storage to make our solution the most reliable solution to this problem.

We expect our solution to address this problem because over half of gun owning Americans do not practice safe storage of their firearms.

By commercializing the technology in other market segments where there is an obvious business need (private security and law enforcement), we will be enabling economies of scale to drastically reduce the costs so every American will be able to purchase this solution. This path to market will also prove the reliability of our solution, which is currently the largest barrier to entry for the consumer market segment. 

We are still in the prototype stage, so we are currently serving zero people.

In one year we plan on serving >20,000 people.

In 5 years, we plan on serving over 3,000,000 people.

Our goals within the next year is to have beta customers in the private security and law enforcement markets. 

Our goal within the next five years to begin the transition to secure firearms and have over 3,000,000 customers in the United States and overseas.

Our immediate barriers to entry are financial. We currently have the ideal technical team in place and patented design to turn our solution into a reality, but we're lacking the funds to make that happen. 

On the cultural side, consumers have historically questioned the reliability of smart gun technology. 

We are projected to have mass commercialization within 5 years, once that happens we do not currently foresee any new barriers after the 5 year mark.

We plan to overcome the cultural barrier by commercializing the technology in the private security market segment first, where there is an immediate business need and less reluctance to try new technology.

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We are currently a team of 4 part time staff. Once we receive the necessary funding, we will all go full time.

Our team is best placed to deliver this solution because all of our engineers are from the only other company that has successfully fused electrical control systems with the mechanical parts of a firearm (TrackingPoint, with additional experience at some of the largest firearm makers in the world). Not only are their seasoned electrical & mechanical engineers with 20+ years each in the firearms industry, but they've seen both success and failure in the industry and have a keen sense of what it takes to succeed. Unlike other entrants in the space, we are approaching this problem with a unique solution and a seasoned engineering team to make it happen.

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• Direct Sales  

  • Design & manufacture the IK user-authorized firearm (UAF)

  • Sell or lease to Private Security, Law Enforcement as a Security-as-a-service model, and eventually Consumers

• IP Licensing and/or Sales

  • License out IP portfolio to other gun manufacturers

  • Adapt to long-gun platforms

  • Integrate into hammer-fire and other firing mechanisms

  • Expand technology integration (Internet-of-Things adaptations)

Our path to financial stability is through our security-as-a-service model where we are selling directly to private security first and law enforcement second. A recurring revenue component is attached to each enterprise unit sold, this covers training and maintenance. 

Once these markets are commercialized, we plan on selling directly to consumers where will be charging a one time expense for each unit, and an optional recurring annual warranty that covers maintenance and replacement parts. 

Projections:

• Deliver 20k units in the first year of operations at an average selling price (ASP) of $700 per unit with $100 per unit/year of recurring fees to cover training, servicing and replacement parts.

  • 1st year revenue: $16,000,000

  • Production rate of 54 units every 12 hour shift

• Deliver 60k units in the second year of operations at an average selling price (ASP) of $700 per unit with $100 per unit/year of recurring fees to cover training, servicing and replacement parts.

  • 2nd year revenue: $48,000,000

  • Production rate of 162 units every 12 hour shift

• Deliver 120k units in the third year of operations. Commercialization of the law enforcement and consumer market segment begins.

  • 3rd year revenue: >$100,000,000

We are applying to Solve because a unique problem requires unique attention, and Solve is positioned to provide this in ways other organizations or grants cannot.

With the experience and funding that solve can bring to bear, we will be able to develop our solution to a production ready version and be in a much better position to solve this increasingly lethal problem.

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We will utilize the Everytown for Gun Safety Prize by developing our patented technology to a production-ready version. This will drastically lower our barriers to entry into the consumer market, where the bulk of this problem will be solved. Ultimately, this will enable our solution to more rapidly address the largest upstream drivers of gun violence, which is the secure storage of firearms.