The Israeli start-up Sirin Labs has announced that it is near in closing a private funding round worth $72 million and plans to launch a secure smartphone with a price tag close to $20,000.

The said phone will be powered by Android and will carry advanced technology that will be three years ahead of the commercial market. It also will feature military-grade security. Sirin Labs’ vision is to create a futuristic smartphone that is more secure, private, and technologically advanced than any other phones available in the market today.

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Sirin Labs has been founded by Kazakh investor Kenges Rakishev, Israeli venture capitalist Moshe Hogeg and McKinsey-trained serial entrepreneur Tal Cohen. The first two joined in 2012, while Cohen became a part of the company a year later. The plan for creating a smartphone came in May 2013, when Kenges’ phone was hacked.

Hogeg believes thousands of executives in the United States and Europe will pay $20,000 for that kind of smartphone, since the cost of being hacked could be more expensive in terms of information lost. The project is undoubtedly ambitious and it remains to be seen whether consumers will give up their beloved iPhones to buy this one instead.

"(Our) smartphone ...brings the most advanced technology available - even if it is not commercially available - and combining it with almost military-grade security,” Hogeg said in a statement.

Sirin Labs has spent almost three years in research and development before finally settling on a working prototype, dubbed as SP1, that it plans on introducing to the public. This is its first product so it remains to be seen whether the phone will deliver. The company’s team says that during the course of the research, they were surprised to find that there are not actually any high-end phones.

TagsSirin Labs, secure smartphone, Israeli start-up Sirin Labs, Smartphone