After just five months in business, LaunchKey has received a $750,000 investment, led by the VegasTechFund. The Las Vegas-based startup, which hopes to replace passwords with an easier and more secure process, announced the funding Dec. 14 during the city’s Tech Cocktail Week.

“On the Web site side … it takes the liability of the passwords away, on the consumer side it makes it a lot easier to not have to remember all those passwords,” LaunchKey co-founder Devin Egan said told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

LaunchKey has developed an app that allows users to securely sign in to their mobile phones without the use of a password. To log in, the user simply enters a username into the LaunchKey site, and instead of being prompted for a password, will receive a notification on the device. The user then can press a button to confirm the login or cancel the request. According to the company, the app can be customized to accommodate user management and advanced security options.

Company founders Egan, Yo Sub Kwon and Geoff Sanders originated the idea during Startup Weekend in Las Vegas in July.

“We had this light bulb idea,” Kwon said. “This whole idea is that passwords are an outdated, antiquated system that we can really get rid of completely. And that’s when we realized we kind of had a revolutionary idea and went off with it.”

[Image via LaunchKey]