BICESTER SURFACE COATING MANUFACTURER SECURES ALMOST £1 MILLION IN NEW FINANCING

Advanced surface coating technology company Hardide Coatings, which recently moved into a new 20,000 sq ft site in Bicester, has successfully raised £790,000 through share placing.

Combined with securing £250,000 under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), the company has raised net new financing of approximately £1 million.

Robert Goddard, Chairman of Hardide which won a Queen’s Award for

Rockley Photonics secures additional $65 million to speed growth

Rockley Photonics, which manufactures photonics chips and custom integrated packaged products, has closed an additional $65 million round of growth capital. The company’s latest cash injection comes from both new private funds as well as Morningside Ventures, an existing investor. To date, Rockley has raised more than $290 million of financing to develop its silicon photonics platform.

Andrew Rickman, Chief Executive Officer at Rockley, said: “There is tremendous need for technologies that can enable effective digital health and wellness, driven by the associated benefit provided to population health.”

Mick Sawka, Investment Manager at Morningside Group, added: “We believe that silicon photonics is at a tipping point, and the technical attributes of Rockley’s platform, coupled with the strong product roadmap and established high-volume production ecosystem, positions the company for growth. We have confidence in the expertise and track record of the Rockley team to deliver exceptional results.”

International Trade last year, said: “We are delighted to receive additional support from investors as the Group takes the prudent measure to increase its cash reserves.

“As the global economy recovers, the Group retains its positive outlook and expectation that demand will return and continue on the upward trajectory that was established before the e ects of the pandemic. It is a mark of our confidence that the Board have contributed to the fundraise.”

Oxfordshire Companies Do Business Down Under As They Look To Grow

Scientific Magnetics, based in Abingdon, is merging with Australian medtech business Magnetica to create a new MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) original equipment manufacturer.

Scientific Magnetics designs and manufactures superconducting magnet systems. The deal is expected to see Avingtrans PLC, which owns a majority stake in Scientific Magnetics, acquire the majority shareholding in the new business, which will continue to be known as Magnetica.

The deal will create a combined business with assets of approximately £5.3 million, and will see Avingtrans invest up to £3.2 million in the newly-formed business to fund MRI product development and commercialisation of existing prototype products developed by the individual entities to date.

Steve McQuillan, CEO of Avingtrans, said: “We believe this merger offers real potential to accelerate our move up the value chain in a highly-specialised and integrated international medical-imaging market.”

And in another deal Down Under, Oxford-based Speik – a leading UK-based provider of call recording and PCI (payment card industry) compliance has been acquired for £21.5 million by Australia-based cloud call recording and voice company AI Dubber Corporation.

Speik will continue independently within the Dubber group, serving customers with its current product portfolio as supplemented by Dubber solutions.

Matthew Bryars, Founder and Vice-Chairman at Speik, said:

“Dubber is the clear category leader in unified call recording and we are excited to accelerate our growth, deliver richer solutions to service providers and unlock the power of voice data for government and enterprises.”