High-tech sensor firm Novosound boosted by £1m grant

The spin-out company was founded by Richard Cooper (left) and Dr Dave Hughes

A Scottish sensor technology firm is to boost its research and development activity after receiving a £1m grant from Scottish Enterprise.

Novosound, which has patented a technique to mass-manufacture printable ultrasound sensors, will focus on the industrial and medical markets.

Novosound also plans to create 17 high-skilled jobs, bringing staff numbers to more than 30.

It is based at Biocity, a biotech incubator next to the M8 near Glasgow.

Novosound was the first spin-out company to emerge from the University of the West of Scotland, raising £1.5m at its seed investment round in April 2018.

The firm, which was founded by Dr Dave Hughes and Richard Cooper, said its approach overcame the limitations of existing technology in sectors such as oil and gas, aerospace and nuclear.

Dr Hughes said: "For example, the current, and dated, sensor technology can only operate at low temperatures and therefore, the oil and gas industry alone incurs costs of billions of dollars every year because they have to shut down refineries to allow the testing to be carried out.

"Our technology works efficiently at high temperatures thus removing the need to shut down at all, saving those lost billions of dollars."

Early-stage investors in Novosound include venture capital firm Par Equity, private investment fund Kelvin Capital, Gabriel investment syndicate, the Scottish Investment Bank, the EOS Technology Investment Syndicate and Investing Women.