THE management of Sigtronics, the bust Scottish circuit board designer, have relaunched the business after raising £250,000 in two months and buying back some assets from the liquidator, writes Victoria Masterson.

The new company, Invint, already has relationships with two large partners and made its first revenues before the end of the year. Sigtronics was liquidated over a bad debt in September after raising £6m in eight years from investors including Noble Grossart, 3i and Scottish Equity Partners.

Bill Matthews, the Invint managing director and former Sigtronics chief executive, said the fact that the company had raised money so quickly was testament to the management team, their technology and enthusiasm. “You won’t find many who from beginning to end have done a funding round in 2Å months,” he said. “It’s a relatively small amount, but given that we expect year one to be breakeven, we recognise that as positive feedback. The organisation feels enthusiastic — partly because the employees own 60% of the equity.”

Invint is focused on the $40 billion interconnectivity market — providing technology that links components with equipment to make gadgets such as mobile phones and MP3 players work.

This function has traditionally been provided by printed circuit boards but Matthews said there was growing demand for less “environmentally challenging” processes.

Matthews and his Invint co-directors had been exploring circuit board alternatives at Sigtronics and planned to use their intellectual property, knowledge and “trade secrets” to capitalise on the market by working with manufacturers.

The firm has been hired by an American chemicals multinational to work as its outsourced applications lab for new interconnectivity materials.