Fusion boosts investment in optical technology firm

FUSION, the Sheffield firm that turns academic research into business, announced a second round of investment in a company which is pioneering the use of optical technology.

The company said it had invested an additional £100,000 in Phase Focus – a spin-out company from the University of Sheffield that is developing “lensless” optical electron and x-ray microscope technology.

In addition to Fusion’s investment in the firm Yorkshire investment company Viking Fund has invested £100,000 and White Rose Technology Seedcorn Fund, managed by Aberdeen Asset Managers, has invested a further £25,000, bringing the total investment in Phase Focus announced today to £250,000.

Following this investment round, Fusion will have a 59.7% shareholding in Phase Focus.

Phase Focus’ cutting edge technology can generate greatly magnified high definition images of an object without the need for sophisticated lenses that are used in conventional microscopes.

Such lenses or other focusing devices in optical, X-ray or electron microscopes can account for up to 30% of the cost of the equipment and often introduce distortions in the images that they produce.

Potential applications for the Phase Focus technology lie within the optical, x-ray and electron microscopy market, a market which is forecast to grow to $1.6bn by 2009.

Fusion chief executive David Baynes said: “Phase Focus is a very exciting spin-out company from the University of Sheffield and has a revolutionary “lensless” microscope technology which is principally targeting the electron microscopy and optical microscopy markets for which addressable opportunities of approximately £40 million are forecast each year, according to Phase Focus estimates. We are pleased to be investing with White Rose and the Viking Fund to advance the prototype technology through full proof of principle.”

Fusion recently changed its name from Biofusion to reflect its enlarged business, which includes more than 20 portfolio companies based on intellectual property (IP) from clean technology energy and renewables to engineering and medical technology.

Yesterday the company announced that one of its companies Asterion had signed a research deal with biotech giant Genzyme.