Seed round for sonic specialist

Funding round closed

ProKyma Ltd, a spin-out from the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), has closed a £470,000 funding round led by Merseyside Special Investment Fund's Liverpool Seed Fund. NESTA, Rainbow Seed Fund and ProKyma management also participated in the round.

The investment will allow ProKyma to develop its Sonic Separation technology which uses ultrasound waves to purify and concentrate bacteria from samples like blood, faeces, soil and water, for more rapid, sensitive and accurate analysis.

The ultimate objective is to concentrate and purify bacteria to allow detection in hours instead of days as is currently necessary. To date, the company has proven that the ultrasound can be used to purify extremely low numbers of bacteria from complex samples such as soil or blood and allow very sensitive detection using molecular tests such as the polymerase chain reaction.

Sonic Separation has also been shown to allow automated rapid analysis of blood groups for use in blood transfusion.

With this funding Prokyma will develop its technology to a point where it can raise a first round of venture capital. The company is currently based in Oxfordshire, and the investment will also help ProKyma relocate to a larger space in the MerseyBio Incubator facility in Liverpool.

Damian Bond, chief executive of ProKyma said the investment will progress the business significantly. “We are now able to complete our feasibility analysis of the different sample types and are beginning to look at the engineering requirements to miniaturise the laboratory equipment we've developed as well as process larger and multiple samples.”