The Electrospinning Company, an Oxford, UK-based biomaterials manufacturer, secured £1.5M in Series A funding.
The round was led by Downing Ventures with participation from MidVen, Newable Private Investing and the STFC.
The company intends to use the funds to grow sales of existing product, increase customer offer and develop new biomaterials.
First established in 2010 as a spin-out from research undertaken by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), The Electrospinning Company uses technology called electrospinning to design, develop and manufacture biomaterials, known as ‘nanofibre scaffolds’, which are made from synthetic polymers that are implanted into the human body, providing help for a range of medical patients and procedures, most typically in post-surgery recovery.
The ‘scaffolds’ are designed to mimic the body’s natural extracellular matrix, which exists to provide support and signalling to surrounding cells, and the biomaterials are tailored so that they degrade or reabsorb naturally once the patient has healed.
Led by Ann Kramer, Chief Executive Officer, The Electrospinning Company supplied the first electrospun material to be used in a Food & Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medical device and has now been selling this product in the US for two years. It is based in the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, near Oxford, where the scaffolds are manufactured on site in a purpose-built facility.
Following earlier work with the University of Sheffield and the LVPrasad eye clinic in India, The Electrospinning Company has also initiated a new project to develop a synthetic membrane that resembles amniotic membrane. Derived from human placenta, amniotic placenta is becoming increasingly popular as a bandage used for wound healing and eye surgery; a synthetic alternative would make this more affordable and available to far more patients.
FinSMEs
04/06/2019