In April Aircraft Medical completed an investment round totalling £1.75 million, to finance a new portfolio of products and prepare the business for a possible AIM flotation.
The company was founded in 2001 (as Smartscope MD) to commercialise what is claimed to be the world’s first fully portable video laryngoscope. This device tackles one of the most challenging risks facing anaesthetists, namely airway management. Laryngoscopes are used to guide a tracheal tube into the larynx to maintain a patient’s airway during anaesthesia. A difficult intubation can lead to severe trauma and in some cases death. Aircraft Medical’s laryngoscope offers a near-guaranteed view of the larynx through the integration of a miniature video camera into the device and a display screen on the handle.
The funding reportedly comprises the following elements:
- £1 million from individual private investors
- £300k grant, as a Translation Award from the Wellcome Trust. Translation Awards are grants designed to respond to the funding gap in the commercialisation of new technologies in the biomedical area, for projects at an early stage (ie insufficiently developed to attract first-round professional financing), yet with the potential to achieve a commercial follow-on at the conclusion of the project (eg as a licensing deal or start-up company). Awards will normally be for periods of two to three years.
- £300k grant from the Department of Health’s Health Technology Devices (HTD) programme (www.healthtechnologyportal.org.uk), aimed at research into innovative healthcare technologies towards the development of new medical devices.
- £150k debt from the RBS
Contact: Matt McGrath 0131 718 6042