Oxford Investment Opportunity Network

The following five companies are seeking investment via the Network as a result of the 31 January, 2007 investment meeting at the Said Business School, Oxford. The descriptions available summarise the investment proposal made by the company. The information is provided by the company and has not been vetted in any way by OION.

If you are interested in receiving further information on any of the companies then please contact us.

Company A is a skin imaging company based in Cambridge UK. Its products that include COSMETRICS, MoleMate and Beau Visage are aimed at Cosmetics, Dermatology and Aesthetic Medicine markets, each of which is global and very large. All products are based on SIAscopy, the company’s patented imaging technology which visualises and measures blood, melanin, collagen and melanin in the dermis.In 2006 the company co-branded with P&G on hundreds of SIAscopes that P&G place in shops globally that sell OLAY products at point of sale to evaluate customer’s skin. Also in 2006 the company won the Technology Innovation of the Year Award from Frost and Sullivan – the prestigious market intelligence company. The NHS are currently funding a large study for the Institute of Public Health at Addenbrookes Hospital, that aims to show that MoleMate used by GPs reduces NHS costs with respect to referring benign lesions to skin cancer clinics. Astron Clinica subsidiaries in Australia and the USA and a global distribution network.

Company B’s main product is a website which can directly answer questions on any subject in a far more effective way than anything that has gone before.The essence of the technology is the management of an independent structured knowledge base containing facts on any subject and which overcomes the current problems that computers have fully understanding natural language web-pages.The technology has been in development since 1998, is patented and is now in operational form. The company has begun private beta testing and intends to launch a public beta six months after receiving this round of funding. It expects to receive revenues immediately from launch.The principal market is the $10 billion per year search engine advertising market. The company is projecting annualised profits after year two of £6.4 million and annualised profits of £178 million at the end of year three.

Company C was established in 2002 to address the retail market for Home Automation. Home Automation includes a wide range of concepts for automating and remotely controlling the function of almost any household device, from electrically operated curtain rails to lighting, audiovisual appliances to security devices and CCTV. The Company has achieved average growth rates of 58% with an annualised turnover of £2.3 million. The Company’s software, has achieved a leading position in Europe for home control software and works with Intel to further refine it. The Company has spotted an interesting use of its technology which it believes represents a significant market opportunity: “Bye Bye Standby” is a simple method to completely cut the power that devices take when they are in “standby mode” thus saving energy, green house gas emissions and money. The £29.99 starter kit should save the typical household approximately £38 per annum in energy costs and, should enough of UK households adopt the technology, then enough power could be saved to decommission an entire power station, saving millions of tons of CO2 emissions a year. Company C is looking to list on AIM and is seeking £650k to expand sales channels and further develop the software.

Company D was established in 2005 to develop chemicals derived from sugar and to create and license related intellectual property.The company has achieved a significant chemical breakthrough by controlling the reaction of sugar in a simple, low cost process. Sugar can now replace oil substrates for some high volume, commercially significant applications. The process breaks the cost barrier to the widespread use of sugar derivatives and opens, for example, the $5bn European markets to sugar chemicals in surfactants (detergents) and polymer additives (PVC).The first products are developed, yields externally validated by the University of Edinburgh and protected by PCT patent filing. The company won a PoCKeT award in 2005. Additional new product development is currently supported by a DTI Research Grant.The team has considerable experience in negotiating technical licensing with multinationals. Licensing negotiations have begun with several multinationals under confidentiality agreements. They have acknowledged the potential of this technology.The company is looking to raise £500,000 to support filing of multiple world-wide patents and for a pilot plant to confirm manufacturing cost data and to supply samples. Investors can expect to receive a return on investment through the dividend distribution policy.

Company E is an emerging speciality pharmaceutical company developing a pipeline of products using its proprietary nanotechnology to create value added medicines from existing drugs. Low drug bioavailability limits the utility of many known medicines and novel therapies. Nanomerics polymer based nanomedicine platform technology increases bioavailability of lipophilic drugs by one order of magnitude. The lead product NANOfol, a nanotechnology enabled form of the best selling intravenous anaesthetic propofol, demonstrates the unique ability of the technology platform to overcome the blood-brain-barrier as it achieves the same effects as currently used formulations with 1/10th of the conventional formulation’s dose. The founding tem led by David Gough, who has thirty years experience in this sector as a manager, consultant, entrepreneur and investor, during which time he has raised or helped raise close to £100m. The company is now seeking an investment of £550,000 to establish the company and commence development of the first product.