Evince Technology Ltd of Netpark, Sedgefield, County Durham, UK, which is developing technologies to enable the manufacture of synthetic diamond-based electronics, has closed its largest funding round to date, amounting to £750,240 in new equity investment from business angels and other private investors. A quarter of the total (£189,000) was raised via Syndicate Room in just 10 days, resulting in the round being over-funded by £100,000 (the maximum agreed by the company at the outset).
This latest investment, together with a £230,000 award from UK Government agency Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board) secured in late 2015, will allow Evince to accelerate key aspects of its technology development program while continuing to strengthen its patent portfolio.
"Following extensive due diligence, our investor group believes Evince has a unique practical approach to realizing electronics using synthetic diamond," comments lead investor James Morton. "Diamond offers the potential to yield devices that are up to 100x faster than silicon and could therefore revolutionise electronics across a broad range of industries and multi-billion dollar markets. Our investment decision was based amongst other things on the professionalism of the company's approach, its passion and determination to succeed, and in particular its rigorous development program to deliver first prototype solid-state diamond electronic devices," he adds.
"This latest funding round is a major milestone in the company's development," says Evince's chairman Phil Cammerman. "It is the largest new investment since Evince restructured its business in 2013 and a significant endorsement for the company's strategy and technology," he adds. "Our aim is to work more closely with partners across a wide range of target applications where we believe our novel diamond technology has the potential to deliver the quantum leap in performance over silicon that the industry is urgently looking for."
Evince was re-launched in 2013 to focus on developing a robust core technology and to expand its target applications, whereas previously the firm had planned to develop and market its own products for the power and energy sectors. The new strategy will see the firm work with partners to define products and target applications, then licence its patented synthetic diamond processing technologies to semiconductor manufacturing partners.
