SHE is more used to riding the waves off the Cornish coast than making money from them.

But Nikki Meek, a former world champion dinghy sailor, has attracted £12m of venture-capital funding for OreCon, the wave-energy company spun out of Plymouth University six years ago.

OreCon raised the cash from Advent Venture Partners, Wellington Partners, Venrock and North Zone of Norway.

It plans to build a giant steel buoy, 40 metres in diameter, that will be tethered four miles from shore by 2010.

OreCon says the structure can generate 1.5 megawatts by simply bobbing on the waves, enough to power 1,000 homes. So far it has only built a prototype.

The company is angling for a slot in Wave Hub, the £28m government project to put a giant electrical socket on the seabed off Cornwall next year to hook wave-energy projects up to the national grid.

Surfers initially voiced concerns that the “wave farm” would damage the county’s famous swell.

But OreCon says it will be too far offshore for that, as well as being less visible from land than wind turbines.

Politicians hope investment in renewables will boost the southwest economy.

David Crisp, OreCon’s chief executive, used to run the online subsidiary of document handler Neopost. Meek is the company’s environmental director. They are hunting for a chairman.

“I have seen a lot of Heath Robinson ideas which are not going to survive out there,” Crisp said.

“OreCon is different.”

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