Ultrasound simulator developer Medaphor will pay up to $4.9m in shares to acquire University of Oxford spinout Intelligent Ultrasound.
Intelligent Ultrasound, a UK-based image analysis spinout from University of Oxford, has been acquired by fellow ultrasound developer Medaphor in a deal worth up to £3.6m ($4.9m).
The all-share transaction provides an exit for the university’s tech transfer office Oxford University Innovation, which had backed a £610,000 seed round in 2012.
Founded in 2012, Intelligent Ultrasound offers image analysis software to process ultrasound scans with modern techniques that improve the data quality for practitioners. It is based on research by Alison Noble, professor of biomedical engineering at Oxford’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering.
Medaphor hopes the technology will help it secure a foothold in the software segment, which it regards as potentially more lucrative than simulators. It has raised £5.5m from placing shares to further develop Intelligent Ultrasound’s suite and research new products which combine ultrasound with augmented reality.
Intelligent Ultrasound had raised a total of £2.2m in equity funding. UK-basedcommercialisation firm IP Group led a £1.3m funding round in 2014 with participation from assorted angel investors.
The UK’s public healthcare provider National Health Service had earlier supplied £200,000 through its National Innovation Centre.
Stuart Gall, chief executive of Medaphor, itself a spinout from Cardiff University, said: “This is a strategic acquisition that will expand our existing ultrasound training simulator business into the larger clinical ultra sound software market.
