Imperial Innovations Group plc, the technology commercialisation and investment company, is to set up a GBP3.3 million pre-commercial funding programme on behalf of the Design Arts Science and Healthcare consortium (DASH). The fund includes GBP1.5 million funding from the London Development Agency.
The DASH consortium comprises of Imperial Innovations, UCL Business Plc, which is the commercialisation arm of University College London, the Royal College of Art, University of the Arts London, the National Physics Laboratory, and Hammersmith Hospitals and St. Mary’s NHS Trusts.
The aim of the programme is to provide funding for early stage projects, technologies and art and design-based business proposals, developing them to a stage where they can be commercialised either through licensing or forming a start-up.
This new funding programme follows a first round of funding established in 2004, which enabled Imperial Innovations to invest in15 projects at Imperial College London.
Four of these projects have since progressed into technology businesses: Midaz Lasers Ltd, a company which develops lasers for the industrial markets; Sensixa Limited, which produces of miniaturised wireless sensing devices; PPU Soft Limited, a pioneer of Pay Per Use Software; and Evo Electric Limited, a producer of high performance electrical motor/generators.
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