UK-based Monica Healthcare, the maker of a fetal and maternal monitor, has been awarded £250,000 from the Nottingham Technology Grant Fund, or N’Tech, to support a further £1m ($1.67m) investment into the business. This will allow the company to grow from its current nine employees to 18 employees over the next year.
Monica previously raised £500,000 ($863,428) in a seed round, allowing it to spin out after 15 years of research at the university. This was followed by a series A of $1.5m in 2007, and a series B of $1.6m in 2009.
Led by Dr Carl Barratt, Monica Healthcare is based at BioCity’s Nottingham location, a UK bioscience incubator currently supporting more than 80 businesses. It was spun out from Nottingham University in 2005, and has since established markets in Brazil, Russia, India, Europe, the Gulf and Australia. Following its second approval from the Food and Drug Administration in 2011, it also expanded into the US.
N’Tech is Nottingham city council’s fund to support the development of businesses focused on life sciences, digital content and clean technologies. It is worth a total of £10m ($16.72m), secured from the UK government’s Regional Growth Fund.
Chief executive Dr Carl Barratt said: “The N’Tech grant is a crucial factor in financing development of our next generation products to improve fetal-maternal care through wireless health.”
