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High Energy Team Fund Low Energy Start Up

When Allan Slater came to the end of his contract with a well-known Services provider in the water industry, he decided to branch out on his own and develop a range of specialised fluid treatment systems that shared a common power source: "Microwaves".  One of the products he wanted to develop used a beam of microwaves in the Radio Frequency (RF) to power a lamp that would revolutionise the treatment of opaque liquids.

After refining his ideas, he joined up with another experienced executive from the food industry, Peter Moore, and they decided to develop and commercialise their RF powered pulsed white light equipment, designed to sterilise opaque liquids, such as milk, fruit juice and beer.  Traditional UV light treatments had stopped at water purification, because the technology was not able to affect opaque fluids.  In addition, preliminary analysis has shown that traditional flash pasteurisation of beer by heating, for example, uses almost 50 times more energy than the equipment now being developed by the team.

Allan and Peter turned to Corporate Finance specialist Watersheds, based in Northampton, to help their company, Microtek Processes Ltd., to raise £500,000 to fund the start-up of the new business and provide funds for patent applications and equipment for validation trials.

Watersheds invited experienced Finance Director, Darren Henry, who was looking to buy a business, to join the Microtek team.  Darren was impressed by the prospects for Microtek and after technical due diligence, agreed to fund the first investment round in the company.  This subsequently led to a small number of additional private investors buying shares and discussions with potential VC partners.

microtek
Stephen Smart, Darren Henry, Peter Moore and Allan Slater with a Microtek micro-wave powered lamp. The lamp connects to the mains and just 5 would light the pitch at Wembley Stadium

Watersheds’ Partner, Stephen Smart, is delighted to have been able to help Allan and Peter to finance the start up, at the same time as gaining something of an education in the application of micro-wave powered light generation.

Allan Slater said:

“Watersheds really stuck at their task and showed great determination in the pursuit of the objective: to help Peter and me to fund our fundamental belief in our products and take them from the drawing board to market”.

Peter Moore, who combined his Business Development role with presentations to potential funders organised by Watersheds, said:

“Stephen and his colleagues were there whenever we needed them and showed drive and ingenuity to bring the funding round to a close.  It is now up to us to make this the business it deserves to be”.

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