 09 March 2007 Heartsine Technologies will this morning announce a £3.2 million investment round.  16th January 2006The money has come from Enterprise Equity, set up in 1987 by the International Fund for Ireland and Northern Ireland’s longest established and top performing venture capital company. The Viridian Growth Fund together with existing investors ACT and the University Challenge Fund supported the round. It will enable Heartsine to accelerate its highly innovative research and development function and capitalise on growing market opportunities particularly in the US. There, so-called ‘Good Samaritan’ laws have mandated the provision of Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) in locations such as schools, dentist offices, airplanes and federal buildings. And with similar regulations ex-pected to spread to Europe, HeartSine says it anticipates “significant demand” for its simple yet effective emergency aid equipment over the next few years. Belfast engineering Professor John Anderson, who invented the world’s first portable cardiac defibrillator, founded HeartSine Technologies and is now its chief technical officer. Since then he has been at the forefront of defibrillation technology worldwide and set up HeartSine in 1997 with headquarters in California. The company has already succeeded in developing two small, lightweight AEDs that can be deployed in public environments such as shopping centres, airports and offices for use by minimally trained individuals. “This new support from two of the main local venture capital firms will allow our team in Belfast to bring further, improved and innovative life-saving devices to market,” Prof Anderson said. “I was impressed by the diligence that the VCs put into structuring this investment. “With an estimated 600 people a day dying from sudden cardiac arrest in the States alone, many lives can be saved by quick defibrillation before professional medics can get to the scene. As a rule of thumb, the chances of surviving sudden cardiac arrest decrease by 10 per cent for every minute that elapses before defibrillation.’’ Aidan Langan, chief executive of Enterprise Equity, said: “The bioengineering technology behind Heartsine is truly leading edge. “The challenge, as it is for most of Northern Ireland’s technology entrepreneurs, is to translate their intellectual property into products with international potential. And for those that have demonstrated potential and strong vision, venture capital is a proven route to accelerating and realising future success.’’ Send To A Friend » | ||
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