Arrayjet has raised a (pounds) 1m funding package that will allow the Dalkeith start-up to take the printer it developed to speed up genetic testing to market.
The cash includes (pounds) 200,000 from the (pounds) 20m Co- Investment Fund, in the first deal funded out of the vehicle created by Scottish Enterprise to help fill the funding gap for small firms.
In a sign of a further decline in some investors’ willingness to fund early-stage companies, although members of the Archangels syndicate backed the company for a third time – providing (pounds) 300,000 – financiers across the UK turned it down.
Peter Shakeshaft, gatekeeper of Archangels, said : “People were saying this company is still pre-revenue, so we’re not interested. That gobsmacks me, as it says there’s no real way to fund companies in development in Scotland by conventional means.”
The firm is preparing for the commercial launch of a machine it has prototyped that uses ink-jet print technology to analyse the reactions of thousands of human genes to substances simultaneously.
Shakeshaft said Archangels, which has been selected with Braveheart Ventures to invest some of the new (pounds) 20m fund, would have struggled to complete the deal without the SE money.
Including the latest round, Archangels’ members had invested a total of (pounds) 700,000 in Arrayjet, as much as they could commit at a time when the lack of stock market flotations made it very hard to exit investments.
Arrayjet also received a Spur Plus government award worth (pounds) 400,000 over three years. It raised (pounds) 100,000 debt from Bank of Scotland.
Howard Manning, one of the three academics who founded the firm in 2000, said it expected to sell the machine to universities and pharmaceuticals companies across the world.
