Belfast-based Causeway Sensors gains £1.5m investment

Causeway Sensors, a Belfast-based diagnostics company which has developed nano-sized sensing chips that can be used to detect early-stage cancer and other diseases, has secured £1.5 million (€1.7 million) in investment.

The company, a spin-out from Queen's University Belfast, was founded by Robert Pollard, Robert Bowman and John Nelson.

It has received £1.2 million in funding in a funding in a round led by the Bank of Ireland £15 million Kernal Capital Growth Fund (NI), which aims to accelerate growth at high potential start-up businesses in the North.

Other backers include Invest Northern Ireland and Qubis, a company established by Queen's in the mid-1990s to commercialise the university's research and development activities.

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Causeway also secured additional funding from Innovate UK to bring total investment secured to £1.5 million.

The company is targeting a share of the fast-growing market for bio-sensors, which is expected to be worth more than $22 billion globally by 2020.

“Causeway Sensors recently took a strategic decision to focus its ground-breaking technology on applications in the medical diagnostics market. This investment validates this new strategy and we look forward to growing our team, developing the technology and exploring new market opportunities,” said Dr Pollard.

Bank of Ireland’s Kernel Capital Growth Fund (NI) previously backed a £500,000 investment in Causeway in late 2016.

Jayne Brady, a partner at Kernel, said Causeway "now has the capability to meet a global need in delivering an innovative and efficient point of care system".