Surrey University spin-out company raises £1.5M in a seed round led by UKI2S to commercialise a novel nano-material that makes X-ray detectors more efficient and promises a more viable route to wide area detector panels.
12th October, Manchester: Silveray, an X-ray technology spin-out from the University of Surrey, has raised £1.5M in a seed funding round led by the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S). ACF Investors, R42 Group, UK Future Tech Investment (UKFTI) and SyndicateRoom’s Access fund were also involved in the funding round.
Silveray is commercialising a new type of highly sensitive direct X-ray conversion material with a wide range of applications from industry to healthcare. The new material is significantly more efficient at picking up X-rays than the conventional alternative, so fewer X-rays are needed to deliver the same image quality. This means imaging can be done more quickly (therefore reducing exposure levels for operators or increasing conveyor belt speeds on production lines) and more cost-effectively.
The seed funding will enable the company to expand its team, transfer its technology into new dedicated premises in Greater Manchester, and initiate product development.
The company’s initial product development focus will be detecting undesirable inclusions within steel tubes using high-resolution X-rays, working in collaboration with Tata Steel UK Ltd. The collaboration will be partially funded by InnovateUK, a public body that supports business-led innovation.
Mark White, Investment Director at UKI2S, said: “We are delighted to support Silveray on its journey to provide a new, highly sensitive X-ray material that will transform the way X-rays are done. We look forward to seeing how the company progresses in the coming months.”
Dan Cathie, CEO of Silveray, said: “This funding is a major first step towards initiating the development of our first product. I would like to thank our investors & partners for their engagement, support, and participation in the round. The funding will allow us to move quickly and hit our product development milestones effectively. We aim to have our first demonstrator products with lead customers in the industry by 2023”.
Sam Fennell, Partner at ACF Investors, said: “X-ray scanners are such a common technology that we don’t often think of them as an area for innovation. But the reality is that the addressable market is huge – far beyond the obvious medical applications, with X-ray equipment critical in a range of sectors from construction to manufacturing. Silveray’s technology could play a key role in bringing the world’s oldest imaging technology into the 21st century.”