Mobile TV star Elonics wins £2m backing

Published on Wednesday 13 February 2008 20:46

PERTH-BASED investment house Braveheart has led the funding round into Elonics, which has also received backing from Scottish Enterprise's Scottish Venture Fund.

Founded in 2003, Elonics claims that its "DigitalTune" platform can be configured to support different standards and frequencies for a range of applications. Its technology will initially be used to develop a TV tuner chip for hand-held devices such as smart phones. Although the market for such chips is small, it is predicted to grow rapidly over the next few years.

Elonics chief executive David Srodzinski said the funding would enable the East Lothian firm to complete the development of the product and take it to market by the third quarter of 2008.

"We have worked tirelessly over the last three years to refine our technology," he said. "We have now moved from concept to successful evaluation at multiple prospect sites throughout the world.

"The funding comes at an excellent time for us as the markets are rapidly growing and feedback is very good indeed."

The level of investment by Farmer, founder of the Kwik-Fit tyre and exhaust business, and Souter, who co-founded transport giant Stagecoach, was not disclosed.

Braveheart chief executive Geoffrey Thomson said: "The size of the investment we have made demonstrates the confidence we have in the potential of Elonics' technology and management and consolidates Braveheart's reputation as one of the key supporters of innovation in this field."

Neil Ross, head of the Scottish Venture Fund, added: "Elonics is an innovative Scottish company capable of becoming a world-leading business.

In December, Thomson said Braveheart was on track to grow fivefold over the next three years. Last month, the firm led a 2m investment into Edinburgh-based Pyreos, which was set up to commercialise motion-detection technology developed by industrial giant Siemens.