New funding takes Inxstor past £1m

Published on Tuesday 14 August 2007 00:21

A FIFE-BASED technology start-up whose software should make pay-TV content available anywhere at any time has attracted £1 million in funding since it was founded last year.

Inxstor has just secured a 600,000 investment led by Braveheart, the Scottish venture capital group, and backed by the Scottish Co-investment Fund.

The cash injection, which will allow the Dunfermline-based company to expand its product development programme and its technical team, follows seed funding last year of about 400,000.

Inxstor specialises in so-called "place shifting" technology, allowing users to watch TV programmes they would normally receive at home in any location, on devices such as mobile phones.

Place shifting, which transmits digital video content via the internet, has been likened to an advanced form of "time shifting" - where a show can be viewed after the initial broadcast, via cable or satellite services. .

Inxstor's technology is believed to be the only place shifting service that allows such content to be accessed from a remote location in a secure way.

The company was spun out of Infinite Data Storage in 2006.

Announcing the first-round funding, chief executive Tony Combe said: "Since spinning out from IDS, we have made good progress in the development of our technology.

"Content providers need to know that their data is secure and that distribution can be controlled. Our technology addresses these key issues.

"We now have working prototypes and we are in discussions with a number of multi-nationals about rolling out the product."

The investment will also provide the fledgling business with working capital for the next 12 months.

Speaking to The Scotsman after pitching at last November's Connect Investment Conference in Edinburgh, Combe said he was "confident of getting the funds that we are after".

Perth-based Braveheart has unveiled a string of deals since it raised 6m through its flotation on AIM in March of this year.

Commenting on the investment in Inxstor, Braveheart co-founder and chief executive Geoffrey Thomson said: "Mobile technologies are becoming very much more sophisticated. In an increasingly mobile world, we see the demand for place-shifting technology as growing significantly in the future.

"Inxstor's technology, the only secure product of its kind in the market, offers users the 'next step' on from universally popular applications such as TiVo and Sky Plus."

Braveheart typically invests between about 250,000 and 1.5m in a single deal, with an exit window of about two to five years.

Part of the funding announced yesterday came from Scottish Enterprise's Scottish Co-investment Fund. Shares in Braveheart, which has a market value of about 20m, edged up 0.5p to 150.5p.