Euro, Hong Kong greenback, U.S. greenback, Japanese yen, pound and Chinese 100 yuan banknotes are noticed in this photograph illustration, January 21, 2016. REUTERS/Jason Lee/Illustration

LONDON, Feb 9 (Reuters) – Warburg Pincus (WP.UL) has taken a stake in Swiss barcode scanning business Scandit as component of a $150 million funds increase in which the U.S. buyout fund will invest in a European tech unicorn amid bumper advancement in the region’s herd of billion-greenback tech get started-ups.

Warburg Pincus has led a late-stage funding spherical that values Zurich-dependent Scandit at extra than $1 billion and supports the rollout of its smart details seize engineering which will help shops scan barcodes to superior cope with booming e-commerce volumes triggered by COVID-19.

“We see a substantial amount of money of lengthy-expression opportunity as the industry for good info capture is in its infancy and Scandit is the market place chief,” Flavio Porciani, a London-based taking care of director at Warburg Pincus, explained to Reuters.

“Scandit has benefited from all the main trends we have viewed accelerate through the pandemic including the want for digital transformation that most providers, their staff and their shoppers are dealing with,” he added.

Funding to billion-greenback start-ups, typically identified as “unicorns,” has proliferated during the pandemic as deep-pocketed investors have paid out significant price ranges for shares in youthful companies.

Europe has generated 84 new unicorns in 2021 – extra than three times that of China – and has seen undertaking capital financial investment a lot more than doubling last yr, generating it the swiftest-expanding location for this asset class globally, in accordance to Crunchbase info.

Scandit – co-launched in 2009 by Chief Government Samuel Mueller – has so significantly lifted nearly $300 million from a broad range of investors which include Atomico, Forestay Capital and Schneider Electrical which invested along with Warburg Pincus in the company’s hottest money simply call.

Scandit, whose customer network consists of American Eagle Outfitters (AEO.N) and FedEx Corp (FDX.N), was picked by Britain’s Nationwide Health and fitness Company to digitize the COVID…