Business

Rep-Tec secures £300,000 loan to expand team and add 15 more jobs

Rep-Tec founder and chief executive Colm Grimes with Jenna Mairs, senior investment manager at Whiterock Finance. Picture: Kelvin Boyes/PressEye
Rep-Tec founder and chief executive Colm Grimes with Jenna Mairs, senior investment manager at Whiterock Finance. Picture: Kelvin Boyes/PressEye

RECYCLING solutions company Rep-Tec near Dungannon has secured £300,000 in funding to expand its operations and help finance the creation of 15 new jobs.

The company - which designs and manufactures automated recycling solutions, including fully automatic balers and conveyor systems, for the waste management industry - received a loan through Whiterock Finance’s Growth Loan Fund II (www.whiterockfinance.co.uk).

Recognising the need for more automated systems to help recycling companies combat labour shortages and tighter controls, Colm Grimes founded the business in 2020 and has seen rapid expansion ever since.

In 2021, Rep-Tec sold and installed the first robotic recycling system in Ireland, embracing a new age of innovation and automation.

As well as devising an export strategy to grow in global markets, the company plans to use the funding to further expand its team of 23 staff, to invest in research into new environmentally friendly solutions and to develop a new range of fully automatic balers.

Colm said: “We are keen to expand the business further into global markets. We recently targeted sales of our products into Europe and North America, and we are developing an export strategy to grow further in these areas and beyond.

“The funding from Whiterock Finance will allow us to grow our team to support the strategic objectives of the company, develop new product ranges and build our customer base globally.”

Jenna Mairs, senior investment manager at Whiterock Finance, said: “Rep-Tec is at the forefront of the recycling and waste management industry in Northern Ireland and we’re excited to see how the company progresses.”

Meanwhile Belfast-based cancer diagnostics company GenoME Diagnostics has closed a £1.4 million funding round which will be used to further develop its lead product OvaME, a novel blood test for earlier and more accurate detection of ovarian cancer.

The company successfully raised a pre-seed round of £300,000 in 2021 which it used to progress OvaME through technical, commercial and regulatory milestones.

The new funding round will allow the team to complete the testing phase, file for EU regulatory approval and expand its regulatory approach to the UK and North America. It will also allow it to extend its novel technology to additional cancer types and enable it to consider further research into additional disease areas.

The funding round was supported by QUBIS, the commercialisation arm of Queen’s University, Co-Fund NI (managed by Clarendon Fund Managers) and Deepbridge Capital.

The round also includes an additional £500,000 InnovateUK Biomedical Catalyst grant for a project in collaboration with QUB, which will be used to continue the development of a novel blood test for earlier detection of additional cancer types.

GenoME Diagnostics chief executive Dr Shannon Beattie said: “We are aiming to improve patient survival and quality of life through affordable and highly accurate tests. This is a significant funding round for us and will help to further develop these life-changing products.”