Heritage · 2001 → 2026
XiD has been shipping production-grade facial recognition since 2001 — from the world's largest dormitory deployment in 2004, through the XS PRO-1000 commercial launch in 2009, to RevoFace Neo and the Smart ID Wallet today. Below: the original video archive, the press, the patents.
Singapore · Boat Quay
Founded a few streets from the river, where the conserved shophouses meet the modern CBD — a city that has spent fifty years turning small operators into national infrastructure. We learned to build the same way.
illustration · stylised view, not to scale
Timeline
Every milestone below is anchored in a public record — patent filings, ACRA registrations, press archives, the original xidtech.com WordPress site or the company's own YouTube channels.
Registered with ACRA on 22 December 2001 (UEN 200108161N) by CTO Jean-Marc Mariani together with directors Myles Kendrick and Charles Francisco. Mission: build production-grade facial-recognition technology for real-world security.
ACRA registryEarly SDKs cover 2D face capture, 3D face modelling and synthesis. The team starts publishing on adaptive face recognition under varying pose and illumination — work that later becomes XID SmartID.
CTO Mariani is nominated for the World Technology Awards for adaptive face recognition through face synthesis. The same year, SmartID is deployed at the Kaki Bukit Immigrant Workers Dormitory in Singapore — 6,000 workers, 16 channels of entry, day/night/all-weather operation. At the time, the world's largest face-processing deployment.
Computerworld Singapore (Aug 2004)On 10 December 2007 XiD publishes its first public YouTube video: "Face Replacement Technology by XID Technologies Pte Ltd" — an early demo of 3D face synthesis for media use cases.
Watch on YouTubeFaceLogon XPress ships — webcam-based face login for Windows XP/Vista. CEO Mike Holt is interviewed by Electronic Design at CES 2008 in Las Vegas. ACRA records a 12 September 2008 corporate update.
CES 2008 interviewSingapore, 11 May 2009 — XiD officially launches XS PRO-1000, a plug-and-play facial-recognition access-control product for the commercial market. Built on the same patented stack already deployed for 40,000+ workers across dormitories, factories and high-sensitivity sites.
Launch videoUS patent application filed (21 December 2011) covering systems and methods for face authentication and recognition using spectrally and/or temporally filtered flash illumination — a foundational patent in XiD's portfolio.
Patent recordXiD productises its access-control engine as Authentikate™ and a biometric SaaS platform — the foundation of today's xidtech.com cloud, with 50+ reporting templates, multi-tenant org structures and BYO-device integrations.
Two decades after founding, XiD is the biometric backbone for construction sites, dormitories, banks and schools across Singapore — quietly authenticating tens of thousands of workers every shift.
RevoFace Neo ships: an AI-enabled biometric edge device on NVIDIA Jetson with secured stack, OSDP/Wiegand and 27 XiD patents. In parallel, the Smart ID Wallet stitches EU eIDAS 2.0 to Singapore Singpass through an MCP gateway and x402 billing.
From May 2026 the BCA's Construction Productivity Data (CPD) mandate goes live. XiD is listed as an upcoming Biometric Authentication System integration on SGBuildex — Singapore's National Data Backbone for the Built Environment.
SGBuildex pageVideo archive · 2007 – 2010
Every video below was shot and uploaded by XiD between December 2007 and January 2010 — long before face-ID was a phone feature. The product names changed; the engine didn't.
First public XiD video on YouTube. An early consumer demo of 3D face synthesis: submit a photo, become a famous singer, footballer or animal in a poster or video. The same engine that powered SmartID, dressed for fun.
Logon to Windows in seconds with just a webcam. The forerunner of today's RevoFace login — no passwords, no tokens, just your face.
Live demo of XiD's patented 3D Face Synthesis™ deployed in Singapore. At the time, the world's largest face-processing deployment in production.
Outdoor, all-weather face gates for homeland security and foreign-worker checkpoints. The same form-factor used today for RevoFace Neo turnstiles.
Long-form walkthrough of FaceLogon XPress for Windows XP / Vista / Vista x64 — XiD's award-winning consumer biometric login.
Interview with then-CEO Mike Holt by Mark David of Electronic Design, recorded at CES 2008 in Las Vegas. Discusses XiD's facial recognition stack, SDKs and OEM strategy.
Predictive Face Synthesis™ — XiD's 2009 technology that boosted any third-party facial-recognition matching engine by 20% to 200%.
Singapore, 11 May 2009: XiD officially launches XS PRO-1000, the first plug-and-play facial-recognition access-control product for the commercial market — built on the same engine already authenticating 40,000+ workers across dormitories and factories.
End-to-end demo of XiD's facial-recognition access-control system — from initial setup to live deployment.
Advanced Facial Recognition Gates (overview)
13 Feb 2009 · 0:55 · 261 views
FaceLogOn XPress (commercial)
13 Feb 2009 · 1:05 · 937 views
Predictive Face Synthesis™ (short)
13 Feb 2009 · 0:08 · 140 views
Advanced Facial Recognition Gates II
24 May 2009 · 1:08 · 2.4K views
XS PRO-1000 (update)
15 Jan 2010 · 0:11 · 48 views
Face LogOn Xpress — short demo
15 Jan 2010 · 1:01 · 140 views
Press & references
External sources you can verify. From the 2004 Computerworld piece on SmartID to today's analyst databases.
Face Synthesis Technology Makes Waves — XID SmartID at Kaki Bukit
Computerworld Singapore
Interview with XiD CEO Mike Holt
Electronic Design (CES Las Vegas)
XS PRO-1000 — plug-and-play facial recognition for commercial access control
XiD press release
Face authentication using spectrally/temporally filtered flash illumination — patent filing
USPTO / WIPO
XID Technologies — company profile, products & competitors
CB Insights
XID Technologies — 2026 company profile
Tracxn
From 2001 to 2026
The same biometric stack that authenticated 40,000 dormitory workers in 2009 now runs RevoFace Neo on Jetson, federates EU eIDAS 2.0 with Singpass, and feeds SGBuildex CPD straight to the BCA. Talk to us about the next twenty-five years.
