• Investment alongside £2 million from existing investors
• Game-changing rugged gas analyser technology
• The Fund supports disruptive technologies with high-performance engineering capacity and proven investment management
LONDON, 30 April 2018: Foresight Group (“Foresight”) is pleased to announce the investment of £1.58 million into MIRICO Limited (“MIRICO” or the “Company”) from Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund (“the Fund”).
MIRICO is based in Harwell Oxford, Didcot, where it develops, manufactures and deploys unique spectrometer products for highly precise, accurate and sensitive gas analysis.
MIRICO’s patent-protected proprietary technology is called Laser Dispersion Spectroscopy (“LDS”) and the Company is now commercialising two new analytical instruments. Gas analysis is required in many industrial applications such as monitoring natural gas throughout the oil and gas value chain or monitoring low level contaminants in specialised industrial processes. The dominant approach to gas analysis is currently laser absorption spectroscopy, a technique that is relatively slow and highly susceptible to environmental interference from non-target gases, dust and water vapour.
MIRICO’s technology has three key advantages:
• Ultra-high sensitivity measurement
• Accuracy across a wide range of gas concentrations
• Immunity from interference from other non-target molecules in the environment.
John Holden, Principal, Foresight Group said: “MIRICO has created a pioneering technology that supports the trend towards increasingly sophisticated industrial processes and growing concerns on environmental pollution. We look forward to working to with them to grow their business and help with the commercialisation of their product.”
MIRICO will use the Fund’s investment, alongside a further £2 million commitment from existing investors, to further commercialise its two innovative products. The Company will benefit from the support of WAE (“Williams”) in progressing to a fully commercial product. Williams is particularly well-placed to provide advice on scaling up manufacturing processes and supply chains.
Matthew Burke, Head of Technology Ventures, WAE: “We are delighted to be announcing our support for MIRICO. Being able to support innovative UK businesses, both in terms of investment and industrial expertise, is at the core of the Williams approach. This will add value to MIRICO and, we hope in time, to the broader UK economy.”
This is the Fund’s fifth investment, following investments into Southampton-based Utonomy, a ground-breaking intelligent gas grid solutions provider; Codeplay, an Edinburgh-based software developer and software consultancy business involved in Heterogeneous Systems; The Salford Valve Company (“Salvalco”), a manufacturer of innovative ecologically sustainable aerosol valves (“Eco-Valves”) and Geospatial Insight, a leading provider of satellite imagery analysis for the insurance, investment and corporate sectors.
