Practica Capital leads Handwave's $4.2M seed round
Handwave has raised $4.2M in a seed funding round, led by Practica Capital with participation from FIRSTPICK, Outlast Fund, and Inovo.vc, to launch a privacy-first biometric payments and ID platform across Europe and the US.
Paying with a handwave once sounded like science fiction, but contactless palm recognition service Amazon One has already been used more than 8 million times. Handwave is stepping onto the field, aiming to provide third-party retailers with a similar but independent solution for faster checkout while leveraging the giant's role in popularizing biometric payments in the West.
Handwave's cofounders, CEO Janis Stirna and Sandis Osmanis-Usmanis, previously worked for one of the world's largest global payment providers, Worldline. Despite this connection, the team aims to build a wide ecosystem. "Our plan is to collaborate with any financial institution or acquiring bank," Janis Stirna commented.
The startup has only partnered with a handful of financial institutions so far, "but very big ones, especially in Europe," Stirna said. This summer, the startup signed an agreement with Visa that could speed up the deployment of Handwave's solution in any country.
Arvydas Bloze, Partner at Practica Capital, said: "The idea that you can securely pay or verify your identity with nothing but your palm – without even taking out a phone - is not just futuristic, it's imminently practical."
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