Norway-based biometric technology developer Zwipe is setting its sights on a $13.7m funding round.
Alongside this, the company intends to apply for admission to trading on Oslo Børs’ multilateral trading facility (MTF) Merkur Market.
By raising more capital and admission to trading, it will help Zwipe to repay debt and support the commercialisation phase and further development of its technology.
The company will look to raise $13.7m through two tranches of funding and the issuance of six million new ordinary shares. Round one will be a private placement offered to existing shareholders and a handful of new investors in Norway and Sweden. These investors have pre-committed to subscribe for 4.5 million shares at a total valuation of $10.3m.
Zwipe board member and founder of Winta Eiendom Lars Windfeldt, is one of the existing shareholders to pre-commit, subscribing to 10.3 per cent of the offering. This is valued at approximately $1.4m.
Tranche two of funding will be a public offering of 1.5 million shares, worth a total of $3.4m. Previous investors into Zwipe will be offered an opportunity to participate, as have new retail investors across the Swedish and Norwegian markets.
Since the Norwegian company was founded in 2009, it has raised $27.6m in equity, grants and debt. This has been funding into R&D, technology development, IP, organisational expansion, partnerships, operational expansion and other preparations for large-scale commercialisation.
Late last year, Zwipe received a $2.6m grant from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme. This will help its commercial go-to-market strategy and is being paid out within tranches over a 24-month period.
Zwipe CEO André Løvestam said, “With a mission of Making Convenience Secure, Zwipe is the first mover and technology leader in our field. We are partnering with global leaders and are well protected with a strong IP portfolio.
“We are preparing for a commercial breakthrough for our biometric payment card solution in the second half of 2019 and accelerating growth in 2020 and beyond, both within biometric payment cards, wearables and other form factors and verticals. With a strengthened balance sheet and shareholder base, we will be well positioned to capture the opportunities ahead.”
Zwipe develops biometric technology for payments, access control and identity. The company has built a payment card which has an embedded fingerprint scanner which verifies the transaction at the point-of-sale.
It formed a couple of partnerships at the end of last year. Zwipe teamed with Smart Technology to design a biometric card production system, and with Allcard to support biometric cards in the Philippines.
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