Vortis Technologies Ltd., a wireless antenna technology company, announced it has closed a seed round with an investors group led by Scottish Enterprise with participation from the Bank of Scotland and individual investors from the U.S. The deal will establish Scotland as the new operational and manufacturing headquarters of the Vortis business.

In the deal, which provides $500,000 in financing, Scotland-based Vortis Technologies Limited has been formed and in turn becomes the parent company to current San Francisco-based technology company Myers Johnson Inc. Vortis Technologies has located its headquarters in Edinburgh, Scotland, including management operations, product development, manufacturing, sales and marketing.

INFO SOURCES

FIRMS

Vortis Technologies Ltd. was founded by CEO and President James R. Johnson and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Steven L. Myers. The company's latest technology includes the Vortis MicroInterferometric Array Antenna, an accessory antenna that attaches to cellular phones to help reduce signal loss and interference for customers who wear a hearing aid. The device also improves cellular phone performance for all users by enhancing signal strength and increasing battery talk time.

U.K. Trade & Investment is the government organization that provides integrated support services for U.K. companies engaged in overseas trade and foreign businesses focused on the U.K. as an inward investment location.

U.K. Trade & Investment launched Global Entrepreneurs Programme (GEP) in 2003 as a novel approach to economic development. Rather than focus on attracting foreign direct investments from large corporations, the GEP champions new business ideas by bringing together entrepreneurs and those who can best guide them towards success in the U.K. The Dealmakers act as a liaison between the government and entrepreneurs.

The High-Growth Start Up Unit at Scottish Enterprise which is part financed by the European Union is set up to offer high level support to help create new companies with the capability of reaching a GBP 5 million valuation by the end of the third year of trading.

The Unit, which became operational in April 2002, is working intensively with around 60 companies at the moment.

The core professional team, six experienced entrepreneurs/engineers/technologists with extensive networks, work intensively with founding project teams and a pool of 30 professional advisers, technologists, international sales and marketing specialists, IPR experts, deal-makers, and experienced entrepreneurs have been selected to support their efforts.

This allows the Unit to tap into a high-value network of expertise and experience, used to assess and support the development of candidate start-ups. The team addresses the whole range of issues relating to the development of a high-tech new venture, including technical and market appraisal, IPR and patents, team building, fund-raising and legal issues, tailoring their support to the needs of the individual project.