SPARK Ventures has provided follow-on funding of £1 million to Vivacta, a vitro diagnostic company, as part of the company’s £5.7 million Series B financing round. This financing will be used to commercialise Vivacta’s first Point of Care (PoC) immunoassay system.

SPARK Ventures has provided follow-on funding of £1 million to Vivacta, a vitro diagnostic company, as part of the company’s £5.7 million Series B financing round. This financing will be used to commercialise Vivacta’s first Point of Care (PoC) immunoassay system.

The additional investment from Spark builds on the $6 million invested by the firm in the company’s series A funding in March 2006. Both new and existing investors contributed to the series B funding, including AGF Private Equity, HBM BioVentures and Viking.

AGF Private Equity and HBM will further strengthen the Vivacta Board through the appointment of two well-known figures in the diagnostics industry, Gerry Moeller,
who was previously chief executive of biopharmaceutical outfit Boehringer Mannheim, and Gerard Vaillant, who chaired the diagnostics division of Johnson & Johnson .