Norway's Next Biometrics Group, which specialises in fingerprint software and hardware, has raised about 165 million Norwegian crowns ($20.32 million) in gross proceeds through private placement consisting of 1,240,000 new shares.Carnegie and DNB Markets acted as joint bookrunners in the private placement.Tore Etholm-Idsoe, CEO of NEXT, said the Private Placement, which was oversubscribed, attracted strong interest from both existing shareholders as well as new high quality institutional investors. “The net proceeds from the Private Placement will be used to invest in increased flexible sensor production capacity, further smart card related R&D and general corporate purposes,” he said.In a statement, the firm confirmed that net proceeds from placement will be used to invest in increased flexible sensor production capacity, further smart card related research and development and general corporate purposes.Last week, Next Biometrics reported a major biometric smart card volume order.The firm's CEO, Tore Etholm-Idsøe, revealed the news as he was showcasing a smart card compatible flexible fingerprint sensor that the firm has developed.The initial order has a value of 12 million Norwegian crowns ($1.46 million) and shipments are scheduled to start in Q3 2016. Volumes to the undisclosed customer are expected to increase to total of 650,000 units in 2017.”We have previously announced that we will not comment further on our smart card developments until we have something material to prove,” Etholm-Idsøe stated. “We are now proud to announce that our ISO-compliance includes the recently published ISO/IEC 17839 standard, and to our knowledge this makes us the only supplier to meet this specification.”

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