Kai Kloepfer

He grew up in Boulder, ColoradoColoradoColorado is a U.S. state classified as one of the Mountain states, with Denver as its capital. It was admitted to the Union on August 1, 1876, as the 38th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 5,773,714.Open the full entry, and attended Fairview High School there; in 2012 he was a sophomore at the school.⁠[1][2][3][4]

Voice of America writes that he had a talent for technology and had been taking apart video machines and teaching himself engineering since the age of five. An article from the Wharton Global Youth Program describes him as a science fair enthusiast who had built blimps, remote-control robots and other projects; in it he says that he did not come from a family of scientists and engineers.⁠[4][3]

5280 writes that he spent his formative years in a mostly gun-free household and built science fair projects so sophisticated that they raised “suspicions of undue parental influence.”⁠[2]

On July 20, 2012, a mass shooting during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises at the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killed 12 people and injured 70; he was then 15 and a high school sophomore in Boulder.⁠[3][4][5]

Sources describe the distance between him and the scene of the shooting differently: NPR writes that he lived about a half-hour drive from Aurora, the Wharton Global Youth Program that he lived 30 minutes from the theater, Boston.com that it was about a 40-minute drive from his hometown, CBS NewsCBS NewsCBS News is the news organization of the U.S. CBS system, part of Paramount, providing news coverage through television, the web and streaming. Its history extends from radio newsgathering to television and digital platforms; its signature programs include CBS Evening News, 60 Minutes and Face the Nation, and CBS News 24/7 is its streaming news service.Open the full entry that Boulder is 45 minutes from where it took place, and the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation and TechCrunchTechCrunchTechCrunch is an American technology news outlet founded in 2005 by Michael Arrington and Keith Teare and headquartered in San Francisco; it mainly covers technology companies, startups, and venture capital, and hosts events such as TechCrunch Disrupt. Its ownership passed successively through AOL, Verizon, and Yahoo, and in 2025 Regent announced its acquisition.Open the full entry that it was about an hour’s drive from his home.⁠[5][3][1][6][7][8]

In 2015 he said that the shooting “deeply impacted not only me, but the Colorado community as a whole”; in 2023 he said that it “inspired me to seek out a technological solution that could help address preventable gun violence.”⁠[6][9]

TechCrunch wrote in 2014 that he came up with the idea two years earlier, when he needed something for his high school science project. CBS News writes that, inspired by the shooting, he decided to focus on reducing gun violence; he was then preparing for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and, while researching for it, came across a Children’s Defense Fund statistic that on average a child in the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry dies or is injured by a firearm every 30 minutes. Voice of America writes that he aimed to prevent firearm tragedies, especially accidental shootings in which children play with a family gun.⁠[8][6][4]

Accounts of his age when he began differ: CBS News writes that he began work on the gun as a science project at 15, while FORTUNE writes that he began work on the prototype at 16 as a high school science project. CBS News wrote in 2017 that he realized he could not stop mass shootings but thought he could still save lives; in 2023 he acknowledged that his smart gun would not have prevented the Aurora shooting: “There are no total solutions.”⁠[10][9][5]

5280 writes that he estimates he spent 1,500 hours during his sophomore year at Fairview High School on the project, experimenting with pistols that his mother bought for him. Voice of America writes that the plastic “smart gun” prototype, which fires only when unlocked by the fingerprint of the owner or an authorized user, took seven months and more than 1,500 hours to build.⁠[2][4]

TechCrunch writes that his parents helped him in monetary increments to buy the parts needed for each improvement, that the total cost was about $3,000, and that the gun was refined through each science fair he entered; the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation writes that the project’s budget was under $3,000. NPR writes that it was a 3D-printed model with a fingerprint sensor on the grip.⁠[8][7][5]

TechCrunch writes that the gun creates a user ID and stores the fingerprint of each authorized user and unlocks only for them; he was interested in information security, and all user data stays on the gun and is never uploaded, which he believed would make it hard to hack.⁠[8]

The Smart Tech Challenges Foundation writes that an earlier version of the project won the Grand Award at the 2013 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair as the top engineering project from an American student, placing him among the top 34 of about 7 million students who entered. Voice of America writes that he first won the local science fair and, at 16, won a first-place grand award in engineering at the international fair.⁠[7][4]

NPR writes that the model won first place at an international engineering science fair and that he spent some of the prize money on a bicycle.⁠[5]

On September 11, 2014, the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation announced a $50,000 grant to him, then a 17-year-old high school student from Boulder, to integrate a fingerprint scanner into a firearm so that only an authorized user’s fingerprint can discharge it; he was starting with a plastic model of a Beretta Px4 Storm before moving to a live firearm. The announcement states that the scanner can be programmed for a nearly unlimited number of users, that the sensor he used is 99.99% accurate, including with partial prints, and that he had used part of the grant to buy a professional-grade 3D printer for prototype parts.⁠[7]

TechCrunch writes that 15 innovators were to share the $1 million Smart Tech prize for gun safety and that he was the first to receive an award; the prize’s main backer was the angel investor and gun reform advocate Ron Conway. In the announcement, Ron Conway said: “We need the iPhone of guns,” and that the entrepreneur who gets this right “could be the Mark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook, Chairman and CEO of Meta, and a co-founder of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. His work spans social networking, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.Open the full entry of guns.”⁠[8][7]

TechCrunch wrote that he would graduate from Fairview High School that year; he said: “I want my gun to help reduce accidental deaths and injuries, and to prevent tragedies.” Colorado Public Radio described him as a high school senior in Boulder and wrote that he had started his own company to continue the project and hoped gun manufacturers would license the technology and build it into their weapons.⁠[8][11]

On September 13, 2014, he spoke about the technology at TEDx Mile High: CONVERGENCE in Denver; Colorado Public Radio writes that the event was held at the University of Denver.⁠[7][8][11]

Voice of America wrote on August 25, 2015, that he, then 18, had been using the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation grant to keep refining his prototype, was integrating the fingerprint lock into a live metal gun and hoped his smart gun would one day be sold alongside regular firearms, and that he planned to spend the next year refining it before starting at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He said: “This doesn’t change the function of a firearm at all. It just makes it safer.”⁠[4]

The same report writes that Kye Javes, a deputy with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, questioned him about the prototype’s durability and reliability, said that a safer gun will never be a substitute for proper training, and added: “When you get a working prototype, I would love to shoot it!”⁠[4]

On November 2, 2015, CBS News featured him in its “Voices Against Violence” series (the page description calls him 18), writing that he had spent about three years developing smart gun technology, had a plastic prototype, and was next going to begin manufacturing the technology in a metal firearm. He said: “My dream for this technology is to have it in every gun store across the country.”⁠[6]

BizWest wrote on December 16, 2015, that he, then 18, had launched an Indiegogo campaign seeking $72,000 for a live-firing version of the smart-gun prototype he had worked on for three years; his design uses a fingerprint sensor and encryption to block anyone not designated as a user from firing it, and he hoped it would prevent accidental shootings, theft, suicides and other misuse, including by children who find an unsecured gun at home.⁠[12]

He founded Biofire in 2016. 5280 writes that he founded it as a teenager. FORTUNE writes that he started working on a biometric gun before he was legally old enough to own one.⁠[13][2][9]

AxiosAxiosAxios is a US digital news media company founded in 2016 by former Politico executives Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz and launched in January 2017. It is known for short news items and industry newsletters in the “Smart Brevity” style, especially for its Washington political coverage, and publishes local news newsletters in cities across the United States through Axios Local. Since 2022 it has been owned by Cox Enterprises.Open the full entry writes that, as a teenager, he took part in a roundtable at a technology conference in 2016.⁠[14]

All About Circuits wrote when he was 19 that his prototype was a 3D-printed model with a built-in fingerprint sensor that could not yet shoot; fingerprints are converted into hashes and stored with encryption, using a key unique to each firearm, and the original fingerprint images cannot be regenerated from the hashes.⁠[15]

On January 12, 2017, CBS News profiled him as a freshman at MIT, writing that Biofire was still headquartered in his family’s house in Boulder, that he had started raising money and building a team, and that Ron Conway was backing the gun; Ron Conway said: “Kai is the Mark Zuckerberg of guns.” In the report his .40-caliber handgun fired like any other weapon, but one of his prototypes, described as a modified “Glock .22,” failed on camera; he called his gun “relatively reliable.” He said: “I think this could be huge. I think it could really be the future of firearms.”⁠[10]

The same report quotes Stephen Sanetti, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, as saying “Good intentions don’t necessarily make good inventions”; he questioned whether a firearm that depends on battery power would reliably work.⁠[10]

The Wharton Global Youth Program article writes that he, then 19 and a freshman at MIT, had raised about $175,000 in grants and donations and had a team of top lawyers, angel investors and Silicon Valley advisors; he had been named to the Forbes “30 Under 30” list and featured in a front-page article in The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal is a U.S. news publication founded in 1889, with a focus on business, finance and economics. It is published by Dow Jones, part of News Corp.Open the full entry. Boston.com writes that he made the Forbes 2017 “30 Under 30” list for consumer technology.⁠[3][1]

In the article he says that about 99% of his engineering knowledge and skills came from projects he assigned himself and that he learned to write a budget by asking friends and contacts, and admits that he had not done comprehensive market research. He also said: “We basically have a mass shooting everyday in the U.S., but these shootings don’t happen all in one place.”⁠[3]

PBS NewsHour wrote on May 24, 2018, that at 15 he had developed, as a high school science fair project, a handgun that can only be activated by its owner’s fingerprints, intending to make a gun that would not work in the hands of toddlers, suicidal teens or anyone without permission to use it; about six years later the project had become the startup Biofire Technologies, which was poised to put its first smart gun on the market.⁠[16]

Sources describe his departure from MIT differently: the Boston Herald wrote on July 16, 2018, that he, then 21, had dropped out of MIT two weeks earlier; Boston.com wrote on July 24, 2018, that he had taken an indefinite leave of absence from MIT a few weeks earlier to grow the business and planned to return once Biofire was up and running; 5280 writes that he dropped out of MIT in 2018 to focus on Biofire.⁠[17][1][2]

The Boston Herald writes that Biofire was then based in Boston, had been selected for MassChallenge, a monthslong startup accelerator in Boston, had raised an initial round from investors in CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry and had five employees with backgrounds in hardware engineering and the gun and defense industries; it was building from scratch a handgun with a fingerprint sensor on the grip that needs charging about once a year. He said: “Boston is in my opinion the best city in the United States for hardware electronics,” and “I have people tell me it’s impossible to build a smart gun.”⁠[17]

Boston.com writes that about two years earlier the project had become a company backed by California investors, that the gun locks whenever someone other than its owner picks it up, and that the company aimed to have a market-ready handgun within about a year and a half.⁠[1]

On July 10, 2019, the Thiel Foundation announced the 22 members of the 2019 class of Thiel Fellows; he is item 13, listed with Boulder, Colorado, and Boston, MassachusettsMassachusettsMassachusetts (officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States; its capital and largest city is Boston. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on February 6, 1788, the sixth state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 7,029,917.Open the full entry, and with Biofire (hardware, smart guns) as his project. The announcement states that Biofire is building smart guns that use advanced biometric technology to enable radically safer ownership of firearms. It also states that the Thiel FellowshipThiel FellowshipThe Thiel Fellowship is a two-year grant program started by investor Peter Thiel and run by the Thiel Foundation that funds young people who skip or stop out of college to build new things instead. The program has been criticized by figures in education for encouraging young people to leave college.Open the full entry, launched in 2011, encourages young people to pursue big ideas and start companies instead of attending college, and that fellows receive $100,000 over the two-year program along with mentorship from the Thiel Foundation’s network of founders, investors and scientists.⁠[18]

FORTUNE writes that after dropping out of MIT he received $100,000 from Peter ThielPeter ThielPeter Thiel is an American entrepreneur and investor, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and the first outside investor in Facebook. He is a partner at the venture capital firm Founders Fund and founded the Thiel Fellowship, which funds young people to leave college and build new things; his public skepticism of higher education, his support for Trump in 2016, and his funding of litigation against Gawker Media have drawn controversy.Open the full entry as part of Peter Thiel’s initiative to pay promising students to quit college and start companies.⁠[9]

5280 writes that Biofire remained in Boston until 2020, when the company moved to Colorado; its headquarters has since been in Broomfield. NPR writes that the headquarters, outside Denver, has an in-house firing range and thermal chambers for environmental testing.⁠[2][19][5]

On May 11, 2022, TechCrunch wrote that Biofire had raised $17 million from more than 50 venture capital firms, family offices and assorted wealthy individuals, finding “bipartisan support”, naming Ron Conway and Gavin de Becker among them, and that the only new board member was retired Lieutenant General Guy C. Swan. Axios wrote the next day that the $17 million was seed funding, that he said institutional investors were part of the round, and that few of Biofire’s investors were willing to be identified. Biofire later stated in a release that it had emerged from three years in stealth mode in May 2022.⁠[20][14][13]

TechCrunch writes that the gun then shown has a fingerprint sensor on the left side of the grip, unlocks when picked up, stays unlocked while held and locks again within a fraction of a second after being put down; it has no RF communications and a single hardened interface port. Axios writes that he said it was being beta tested with law enforcement and firearms experts and has no RFID or other wireless capability.⁠[20][14]

He said that Biofire’s goal is “to do this one thing perfectly,” and also said: “I see firearm ownership continuing to be part of American culture for the foreseeable future,” and “A smart gun isn’t a cure-all, but we do think that we can have an immediate and substantial impact.”⁠[20][14]

On November 7, 2022, Biofire announced a $14 million Series A, which it described as the first venture capital-led investment in a firearms technology company. Founders FundFounders FundFounders Fund is a venture capital firm founded in San Francisco in 2005 by Peter Thiel and his former PayPal colleagues Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. Run by partners who were entrepreneurs themselves, it argues that founders should keep more control and is known for betting on difficult technology projects in areas such as space, defense, and artificial intelligence. It was Palantir’s first institutional investor, has invested in SpaceX many times since 2008, and its other notable investments include Facebook, Airbnb, Stripe, and Anduril; as of March 2026 it had raised nine early-stage funds and four growth funds.Open the full entry led the round, with 10X Capital, Gaingels and Will ManidisWill ManidisWill Manidis is an entrepreneur, investor and writer who co-founded ScienceIO, a language model company for healthcare, and served as its CEO; ScienceIO was acquired by Veradigm in 2024 for $140 million. He is a 2019 Thiel Fellow and writes on technology in his Substack newsletter, Minutes.Open the full entry as new investors and existing investors Draper Associates, Structure Capital, Service Provider Capital and Gavin de Becker & Associates participating.⁠[13][21]

Trae Stephens, a partner at Founders Fund, said in the release: “The Biofire team has changed my mind”; Biometric Update writes that he had previously called smart gun technology uninvestable. He himself said in the release: “I am proud to join with Founders Fund and our other exceptional investors to transform this industry.” Biometric Update writes that the company was preparing for a commercial launch in 2023 and hiring for its engineering, customer and operations teams.⁠[13][21]

In April 2023, Biofire launched its first public product, the Biofire Smart Gun, and began taking pre-orders: a 9 mm handgun that uses both fingerprint and 3D facial recognition and unlocks only for authorized users. NPR writes that the fingerprint sensor sits on the grip where the middle finger rests and the facial recognition sensor on the back, and that green lights on the sight and the back show when it is unlocked.⁠[9][5][19][22]

ReutersReutersReuters is an international news agency founded in London in 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter and is now the news business of Thomson Reuters. It provides text, photo, video, and graphics coverage to media and institutional clients and distributes it through channels such as Reuters Connect.Open the full entry wrote on April 21, 2023, that the standard model was priced at $1,499, that the first pre-ordered guns could ship as soon as the fourth quarter of 2023 and the standard model could be available by the second quarter of 2024; in a demonstration for Reuters a prototype twice failed to fire, which he attributed to the mechanical gun’s pre-production and prototype parts, saying the software and electronics had been fully tested. He described the company’s task as “How do we build an extremely reliable product that will always unlock for you anytime that you pick it up.”⁠[19]

NPR wrote in April 2023 that Biofire, led by him at 26, had 40 employees and $30 million in venture capital and had built hundreds of prototypes; in NPR’s test, he was the only authorized user, and the gun stayed locked and would not fire when an NPR reporter picked it up. He said: “My goal is I want to have an incremental positive impact on sort of the uniquely American challenge of gun deaths.” Nick Suplina of the gun control group Everytown said that the gun “works,” but that “Even if widely introduced, smart guns only solve part of the problem of gun violence in the United States.”⁠[5]

5280 writes that the Launch Edition, priced at $1,899, had already sold out, that the company said it had received thousands of pre-orders, and that delivery was expected in early 2024.⁠[2]

KUNC wrote on July 3, 2023, that Biofire’s Colorado office has pillars showing the history of the smart gun’s development, beginning with his science fair prototype and ending with the new Biofire Smart Gun; the gun comes with a portable dock with a small screen that charges it and edits user permissions, temporary users can be set to be deleted automatically after a few hours, and a full charge lasts up to six months; the first guns would not ship until the end of the year. He had fired and handled the gun and had taken one home for a short time.⁠[22]

He said: “A lot of the technology we’re using did not exist two years ago, in most cases,” and that he was seeing something “that I only dreamed of like 11 years ago.” He said that he would not submit the gun for review in New JerseyNew JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the eastern United States on the Atlantic Ocean, bordered by New York State, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, with the Hudson River forming its northeastern boundary and the Delaware River its western boundary; its capital is Trenton and its largest city is Newark. One of the original 13 colonies, it became the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on December 18, 1787, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 9,288,994.Open the full entry, so as not to trigger that state’s smart gun law.⁠[22]

5280 published a long profile by Spencer Campbell in its July 2023 issue, which says that he, then 26, owns more guns than he is comfortable admitting to the media; it writes that Biofire then had 40 full-time employees and had raised more than $30 million with Bryan Rogers as lead designer. He said in the profile: “A gun that only works exactly the way you want it to is kind of obvious and uncontroversial, in my opinion.”⁠[2]

FORTUNE published a profile of him by Michal Lev-Ram on August 10, 2023, writing that Biofire had raised $30 million in venture capital and had 40 employees and that its guns aim to prevent accidental shootings and suicides. He said that the company has to balance promoting its “exciting, cutting-edge technology” with showing that the customer experience is “super simple and enjoyable.”⁠[9]

TechCrunch wrote on February 10, 2024, that Biofire had raised a $7 million Series A extension that week from investors including Founders Fund, CAZ Investments, Valhalla Ventures and Liquid 2 Ventures. He said that the company had struggled to raise institutional money in its first rounds and had been backed mainly by angel investors, whereas the latest round “is entirely institutional investors.” Biometric Update writes that this followed the $17 million seed round and the $14 million Series A, and that he attributes the growing venture capital interest to investment in defense technology startups.⁠[23][24]

NBCNBCNBC (National Broadcasting Company) is an American national commercial broadcast television network. It was founded by RCA in 1926, began as a radio network and later developed television. With ABC and CBS it is one of the three traditional U.S. broadcast networks; it passed to General Electric with RCA in 1986, merged with Universal to form NBCUniversal in 2004, has been controlled by Comcast since 2011, and is one of the five networks that rotate in the White House television pool.Open the full entry News writes that Biofire had raised more than $37 million in venture capital and private funds and that its first batch of guns would go to investors, friends and others in its inner circle that month, with its paid customers, numbering in the “thousands,” to receive their orders in the following months, roughly a third of them first-time gun owners; the gun costs $1,499, allows up to five authorized users, disables the trigger once it leaves their grip, and cannot be accessed remotely. He compared the gun’s complexity to that of a “small satellite.” Biometric Update wrote on March 27, 2024, that Biofire said it would begin shipping the guns by the end of March 2024.⁠[25][24]

In April 2024 he said on Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street: “We’re actually going to be shipping the first smart guns here within the next few weeks to early customers.” Fox Business wrote on April 19, 2024, that the gun is a full-sized, striker-fired 9 mm semiautomatic pistol with 10-round and double-stacked 15-round magazines, a 4.7-inch barrel, an overall length of 8.7 inches and an unloaded weight of 2.4 pounds, priced at $1,499 with its smart dock, and that Batch 4 orders were expected to be delivered in early 2025.⁠[26]

On October 28, 2024, TechCrunch published a 30-minute Found Live session recorded at TechCrunch DisruptTechCrunch DisruptTechCrunch Disrupt is a technology and startup conference organized by TechCrunch, combining interviews, product demonstrations, startup competitions and industry networking for founders and investors.Open the full entry 2024, in which the Found co-hosts Becca Szkutak and Dominic Davis talked with him; the page describes Biofire as a smart gun company that aims to prevent firearm misuse. He talked about the hurdles of building a hardware startup in the firearm industry, from fundraising to building a reliable product, and the conversation also dealt with gun violence and suicide.⁠[27]

Boston.com wrote in 2018 that he pictures the smart gun as a device that could prevent accidental shooting deaths and suicides, and that suicides make up about two-thirds of firearm-related deaths in the United States. He said the approach works without affecting the rights of gun owners; he called gun violence “a very complicated problem” that will take a “multifaceted approach,” with technology as one of the solutions and new legislation as part of a larger solution.⁠[1]

NBC News writes that Biofire opposes any government mandates to require biometric features in guns and joined every major gun-rights group in opposing New Jersey’s new requirement for dealers to stock smart guns; it had not submitted paperwork for its product to be evaluated by the state, and all sales went through its website. 5280 writes that Biofire’s lobbyists actively advocate against any legislation that might mandate its technology.⁠[25][2]

His author biography on the TechCrunch website states that he is the founder and CEO of Biofire, a defense technology company that makes firearms combining software and hardware, and that its technology can serve consumers, security services, law enforcement and defense agencies.⁠[28]

Biofire: Official website: https://biofire.io/ (opens in a new window).⁠[29][13]

Thiel Fellowship: Official website: https://thielfellowship.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[30]

X: Public account: https://x.com/KaiKloepfer (opens in a new window).⁠[28]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaikloepfer/ (opens in a new window).⁠[28]