Braveheart's £320,000 funding for Spiral chip

Published on Friday 15 June 2007 00:06

A COMPANY spun out from Edinburgh University has attracted fresh funding of £320,000, as it looks to develop its first commercial microchip.

Spiral Gateway, which was incorporated in 2004, said it had received the money from Braveheart Investments, the Scottish venture capital group, through the latter's Alpha EIS fund.

The funding is Braveheart's second cash injection into Spiral.

The Perth company's Alpha fund is backed by Bank of Scotland and Scottish Enterprise, as well as Braveheart's own clients.

Spiral Gateway co-founder Matthew Lawrenson said: "Braveheart has supported our company throughout its early life. This round of funding will help us to strengthen our technical teams and hence our R&D and product refinement processes."

The company will further develop its technology before seeking "a more substantial" round of funding early next year.

Spiral's processor design is said to offer a "major opportunity" for portable applications such as mobile phone handsets, cameras and other multimedia devices, increasing functionality and flexibility while reducing cost.

Braveheart chief executive Geoffrey Thomson added: "The increase in processing performance required by new devices is prolific, however consumers won't accept degradation in battery life. To meet these demands, new processing architectures are needed."

The 2.5 million Alpha EIS fund was set up in December 2005 to invest in early-stage university spin-outs "with potential for significant growth". Managed by Braveheart, it is targeting a minimum of ten investments with a follow-on facility on the cards.