Angel-led investment
The UK business angels network Seraphim Capital has led a £2 million investment into Sirigen, the University of California spin-out that is commercialising the conjugated polymer technology for which its inventors won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000.
Sirigen was formed in 2003 with rights to apply the technology across the life sciences industry, and recently established its headquarters and commercial operations in the UK.
Conjugated polymers have unique light harvesting properties which facilitate the amplification of light sources passed through them. Sirigen has the exclusive rights to use this technology in biological assays, diagnostics and other healthcare applications.
Light amplification addresses a key issue facing the biomedical industry in that testing equipment has already been optimised for sensitivity. Finding a means of magnifying the light output of test and diagnostic assays will therefore be the major catalyst for the next generation of personal healthcare management devices.
Sirigen says its technology is platform agnostic, enabling it to amplify the sensitivity of a wide range of existing instrumentation and detection platforms by up to 100-fold. It is currently working with European companies Lab21, Qiagen and Novartis, to apply the technology to their products.
Seraphim is a consortium of Business Angel networks and corporate venturers across the UK, which have joined forces to raise £10 million of private investment, with £20 million of UK government funding, to manage one of the Enterprise Capital Funds, set up to boost investment in start-ups.
Seraphim’s partners include Business Angel networks from the South East represented by London Business Angels and Pi Capital, Advantage Business Angels in the Midlands, in the North through Entrust and in Scotland through Archangels. The corporate venturers involved are General Capital Venture Finance, The Summit Group and GLE. In addition the fund has back from Focus Enterprises a US investment bank, and New Vantage Group, a US Angel Group.
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