Albagaia has secured £500,000 from a group of investors, with £240,000 from angel group Equity Gap and the Scottish Enterprise’s Scottish Investment Bank, and will now launch an international sales team for its water testing product.

The remainder of the funds has come from a £250,000 research grant from Zero Waste Scotland and Scottish Enterprise’s SMART:Scotland.

Edinburgh-based Albagaia’s technology was initially developed to destroy deadly agents in chemical weapons but was later adapted to recover contaminated material and generate clean water.

Graham Tyrie, chief executive of Albagaia, says that the capital raised allows the company to fund both water treatment and its smartphone reader software.

He adds, ‘We are developing the reader for Legionella service and have plans to extend to other point of care tests. Further significant corporate developments are under way as Albagaia positions itself as a key player in the international water treatment and testing markets.’

Jock Millican, director at Equity Gap, believes that Albagaia is an ‘excellent investment’ with all three strands of the business at different stages of development.

‘Hydrosense is producing revenue but needs some sales impetus, the smartphone reader is almost ready for sales and the photocatalytic oxidation technology has been proven at small scale,’ he explains.

‘The investment will be used to scale up the advanced oxidation technology and sales staff for the Hydrosense test kit. The management team is strong and the projections are realistic.’