The corporate venturing units of Norwegian oil company Statoil and US-based energy company Chevron have helped Silixa raise $8m,which will allow the UK-based fibre optic cable oompany to commercialise its product.
Statoil Technology Invest and Chevron Technology Ventures invested after the company had received previous investments from the Chevron corporate venturing unit, and venture firm Lime Rock Partners.
The deal follows Silixa working with Statoil research and development team and on Chevron’s gas wells to test its products, which recors the acoustic signal in real time, at every metre along tens of kilometres of standard optical fibres..
Sigurd Paulsen, Statoil Technology Invest’s investment director, said: “We are very excited to make an equity investment in Silixa, which will strengthen what already is a strong cooperation between the two companies. In addition to the technology being able to tell us precisely what is going on in the well at every location, we are also excited about its application in other areas of growing importance, such as pipeline and environmental monitoring.”
Trevor Burgess, managing director at Lime Rock Partners, said the deal was: “a significant endorsement of the achievements made by Silixa’s management team in growing the company. We are delighted to have Statoil Technology Invest on board alongside Chevron Technology Ventures.”
The deal follows Silixa raising $10m from Lime Rock in March 2010. At the time of that fundraising the company had previously been backed by Chevron.
Silixa was founded in 2007.