Inveready Seed Capital a risk capital firm based at the Barcelona Science Park, has participated with 250,000 € in a capital extension of X-Ray Imatek, a company specialising in the design and manufacture of medical instruments. Additionally, X-Ray Imatek has been granted a 300,000 € participative loan from ENISA, plus a 350,000 € loan from CDTI NEOTEC and a further 100,000€ in grants. These resources secure the financing of the company for the next two years, which will enable it to complete clinical trials on a new digital detector in mamography to be launched in the market by mid 2011.

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With the entry of these new investors, the founders of the society together with the High Energy Physics Institute (IFAE) remain the majority shareholders of the company. Inveready, that will be a minority but signifcant shareholder, commits itself to a long-term investment aimed at the completion of projects currently in progress and to the international expansion of the company in the field of digial mammography.

X-Ray Imatek is a company that makes medical instruments located at the Research Park at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Parc-UAB) funded in 2006 by the IFAE researchers ( Mokhtar Chmeissani Raad, Enrique Fernández and Carlos Sánchez) with the support from the university and the Department of Innovation, Universities and Business of the Generalitat local government. The first product of the company is the result of the European project of the framework programme FP-7, undeer the title “Detection of Early Markers in Mammography” (DEAR-MAMA). This project that was coordinated by the IFAE and backed up by other institutions, among which the National Center for Microelectronics (CNM-IBM) and the Breast Pathology Diagnostic Unit (UDIAT) at the Parc Taulí hospital stood out, was completd with the development of different innovative technologies in the field of digital mammography, upon which the company has based its subsequent development.

The objective of X-Ray is to become the reference supplier for the development of digital detectors, initially in the field of mammography to later enter other market segments such as the osteoporos, chest radiology or 3D biopsy markets, for which it already has different prototypes.

Firm Inveready specialises in investing capital in newly created Spanish technological companies and has recently succesfully completed a capital extension of 13,000,000 €. At present, it has more than 50 shareholders, being the most representative the actual executive directors of Inveready, leaded by the chief executive officer Mr. Josep Maria Echarri, whom on his own, holds nearly 7% of the capital shares, which has turned him into the company’s first private shareholder with the highest number of shares. Caixa Laietana and different prestigious Spanish Family Offices hold approximately 5% of the capital.

The objective of Inveready, which holds a 30% share stake in Aleria Biodevices, a biotech company, is to expand its portfolio of shareholding companies to between 30 and 40 investment deals in a four-year period from contributions in the 100,000 to 500,000 euro range to technological companies at their initial expansion phase.