Warburg Pincus has taken a stake in Swiss barcode scanning firm Scandit as part of a $150 million capital raise in which the U.S. buyout fund will invest in a European tech unicorn amid bumper growth in the region’s herd of billion-dollar tech startups.
Scandit’s smart data capture technology helps retailers scan barcodes to better cope with booming eCommerce volumes triggered by COVID-19.
“We see a huge amount of long-term potential as the market for smart data capture is in its infancy and Scandit is the market leader,” Flavio Porciani, a London-based managing director at Warburg Pincus, told Reuters.
“Scandit has benefited from all the main trends we’ve seen accelerate during the pandemic including the need for digital transformation that most companies, their employees and their customers are facing,” he added.
Scandit, co-founded in 2009 by Chief Executive Samuel Mueller, has so far raised almost $300 million from a wide range of investors including Atomico, Forestay Capital and Schneider Electric which invested alongside Warburg Pincus in the company’s latest cash call.
Scandit, whose client network includes American Eagle Outfitters and FedEx Corp, was selected by Britain’s National Health Service to digitize the COVID testing process last year. Its revenue has more than doubled since its previous fundraising in May as logistics companies increasingly rely on barcode technology to work with the likes of Amazon.com Inc in handling last-mile delivery between a distribution hub and consumers’ doorsteps.
