Norway-based fingerprint biometrics company Zwipe has announced a new joint venture with China’s Kuang-Chi Group.
Kuang-Chi is a Shenzhen-based consortium that invests in high-tech startups and small companies on the cusp of commercialization. It has just announced its second Global Community of Innovation (GCI), which is aimed at investing up to $250 million in such companies and forming joint ventures to improve the market positions of its beneficiaries.
Zwipe was also a beneficiary of Kuang-Chi last year, having received $5 million in equity from a Kuang-Chi subsidiary last October, when Kuang-Chi took a 20 percent stake in the company. Now, Kuang-Chi is raising its investment to $8.9 million, with company Chairman Dr. Liu Ruopeng suggesting that Zwipe’s fingerprint smart card technology “fits perfectly” with Kuang-Chi’s aims as its platform “can be commercialized and scaled” during the current “biometric revolution”.
Kuang-Chi will hold a 51 percent stake in the joint venture, and Zwipe will have 49 percent.
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October 31, 2016 – by Alex Perala
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