Quantum Imaging, a local spin-out from UK -based Leeds University, has raised £1.6m ($3m) in a round led by intellectual property investor IP Group with a co-investment from its IP Venture Fund II, a £30m venture capital fund the firm manages in partnership with the European Investment Fund (EIF), and the university.

IP Venture Fund II closed in May 2013 and invests alongside IP Group in new spin‐out companies from the firm’s university partnerships and other collaborations with the EIF effectively investing alongside IP Group on a four to one ratio.

Leeds University was the first UK university to set up a dedicated technology transfer function and has made more than 47 spin-outs. In 2002 it became the first university in the UK to outsource its technology commercialisation activities to Techtran, which was acquired by IP Group in January 2005.

The financing has been committed in two equal tranches for the development of a medical imaging device that can detect and display minute magnetic signals that are present in healthy and diseased organs.

Quantum Imaging’s technologies came from research directed by Professor Ben Varcoe, chair in quantum information at the university. This work was supported by initial proof of concept funding from the UK state’s National Innovation Centre funded by the National Health Service (NHS) and the Medical Technologies Innovation and Knowledge Centre funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Technology Strategy Board. 

Steve Parker, chief executive at Quantum, which is chaired by Robert Barr, said: “The simplicity of this test and the ease and speed with which it can be deployed means that for the first time it can be used in an acute environment to very quickly detect potential life threatening conditions, such as  heart attacks, to better triage patients and better utilise scarce hospital resources”.