Norway's Zwipe, which has developed payment and access cards featuring fingerprint sensors, has raised $5 million in equity from Photon Future.The investment comes almost a year after Zwipe launched its fingerprint authenticated payment card.In a statement, the company said the series B investment enables Zwipe to accelerate the commercialization of its biometric authentication technology and to finance further research and development activities. Photon Future is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kuang-Chi Group, which invests in disruptive innovations worldwide.Kuang-Chi is a high-tech Chinese holding group which has established research and innovation platforms of science and technologies. Two of the group's subsidiaries are listed companies that invest in technology concepts including development and initial commercialization phases.”The growth capital and commercialization support of Kuang-Chi comes at the right time as the biometric sector progresses rapidly and we are preparing to expand our global reach and product offerings,” said Kim Kristian Humborstad, Founder and CEO of Zwipe. “We continue to be overwhelmed by the response from the market, validating our original intention of filling business plan of filling the gap between security and ease of use. The invested capital and commercial cooperation with Kaung-Chi is a critical factor to enable us to meet the market demand.”Zwipe says its unique capture and match-on-card technology, along with the patented energy harvesting technology, provides a solution for privacy concerns as well as a seamless integration with existing infrastructures.With this investment, Kuang-Chi becomes Zwipe's largest shareholder with a 20% stake in the company. In addition to this investment, Kuang-Chi supports the commercialization of group companies' technologies with market knowledge, research and development resources and industry networks.”At Kuang-Chi, we are looking for companies with strong technology platforms that can be commercialized and scaled so that we can integrate our business sectors and diversify our business,” said Dr. Liu Ruopeng, founder of Kuang-Chi. “Zwipe is at the forefront of the emerging field of biometric identification and we are excited about the company's impressive technology and opportunities.”
Zwipe welcomes $5m from Chinese investor
