Optosecurity nets $14 million in new funding

Kudos to Quebec, Canada-based Optosecurity. We like this company a lot, owing in no small part to the fact that its optical detection devices are drawn from cold war-era technology (known as “optical threat detection”) intended to identify rapidly Soviet planes and tanks. Yet this is not the company’s only interesting product. Intending to make itself useful in all areas of airport security, Optosecurity also manufactures the Optosecurity XMS (X-Ray Molecular Spectrometer), a device easily attachable to existing airport X-ray machines that can identify potential threats according to their unique molecular signatures. Yet it is one thing to impress Homeland Security Daily Wire. It is a entirely different thing to impress the money-men, but this is what the company has done. It announced this week that it had received $14 million in new financing.

Of the infusion, $10.54 million came from as venture capital from a syndicate of investors led by BDC Capital, Desjardins Capital regional et cooperatif, Fondaction CSN, and Innovatech Quebec (a $125 million early stage venture capital fund owned by the Government of Quebec), with an additional $4.85 Million from the National Bank of Canada. All told, Optosecurity has secured a total of $20.43 million of financing since June 2005. This second round of investment will be used for marketing, business development, product development, and for preparing scalable manufacturing processes to meet expected demand for new Optosecurity products scheduled for launch in 2007.

-read more in this company news release