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Tech tracker round-up: Tailwise raises £200,000 in a bid to tackle puppy farming, Zuckerberg faces EU parliament hearing

Here the Evening Standard business team highlights all the major tech news today.

Top story sees revolutionary new platform Tailwise raise £200,000.

The website and app allows dog seekers to set up a profile detailing their homelife, lifestyle, dog preferences, and why they want a dog.

It then matches the dog buyer to verified breeders.

The company was started by chief executive and dog lover Sam Worthy and chief operating officer Dan Baird.

The service aims to prevent people buying from puppy farms and was launched in 2017 after Worthy decided he had enough of the poor industry standards he had witnessed.

Worthy said: “I grew up around dogs, so a couple of years ago I looked into getting my own. The one I saw was very likely from a puppy farm and I realised that the dog buying process was completely outdated and fraught with risks. It became clear that there is a stark split between breeders who care and want the very best for their litters and unscrupulous people who exploit the emotive nature of buying a puppy.

“At Tailwise we’re working with great breeders, using tech to radically improve animal welfare and provide transparency for the most important moment in a dog owners life - finding the right dog.”

On Tailwise dog breeders and seekers go through a range of identity verification checks and all puppies are vet checked before they go to their new homes. The dog market is huge with people in the UK buying between 770,000 and 1.5 million puppies per year.

Tailwise stays involved in the process to ensure the dog is safe in the new home and then allows the breeders and new owners to stay in touch with each other afterwards.

Meanwhile its another big day for Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg who will be grilled by the European Parliament tomorrow.

Zuckerberg has agreed to a live web stream for the hearing. A Facebook spokeswoman said: “We’re looking forward to the meeting and happy for it to be live streamed.”

Zuckerberg, who founded the US social media giant, will be in Europe to defend the company after scandal over its sale of personal data to political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica which worked on US President Donald Trump’s election campaign, among others..

He is also due to meet French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday.

Finally PayPal Holdings has agreed to buy Swedish financial technology startup iZettle for $2.2 billion in the US online payments provider’s biggest ever acquisition.

The deal will allow the Californian company to expand into the retail payment terminals business in international markets, where it will compete with Silicon Valley firm Square founded by Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey.

Stockholm-based iZettle, which had advanced plans to go public, offers small businesses a miniature credit card reader that turns smartphones or tablets into payment registers.