Albagaia will use some of the £500,000 of new funding for an export drive for its testing kits. This funding was split between equity and grant funding; half of the equity investment came from Equity Gap angel group and half from Scottish Enterprise's (SE) Scottish Investment Bank, with this funding unlocking a further £250,000 in research grants.

The company's test can detect the Legionella bacteria in 25 minutes compared with up to two weeks in a traditional lab. Legionnaires' is a bacterial disease that causes a lung infection or pneumonia and is transmitted by contaminated water, especially from heating or water supply systems. The Linlithgow-based firm also plans to develop its water treatment systems and has developed smartphone software which speeds up the process of reading test results.

Albagaia chief executive Graham Tyrie said: "This demonstration of faith in Albagaia's future prospects allows us to fund both water treatment and our innovative smartphone reader software which reads test results independently and transmits them to a central database."

Equity Gap chairman Jock Millican said: “Albagaia is an excellent investment with the three strands of the business at different stages of development.”

www.albagaia.com

May 2012