A Dublin-based company manufacturing automation equipment for the CD/ DVD industry has received £500,000 (€634,870) funding from the Guinness Ulster Bank Equity Fund, which is managed by NCB Ventures.
Dun Laoghaire-based Bronway will use the investment to fund its product development and marketing of products for the CD/DVD manufacture business, including sleevers, collators and counters.
According to Mr Martin O'Malley, managing director of Bronway, the company is in a profitable position, and this year will record sales of £3 million. He predicts this figure will rise to £5.5 million next year.
Guinness Ulster Bank Equity Fund now takes a minority stake in Bronway. Similar previous investments by the fund indicate this is likely to represent between an 18 to 25 per cent share of the company. Another significant minority shareholder is entrepreneur Mr David Kerr, who invested in Bronway two years ago. Mr Kerr brought his expertise and backing to the company after it needed to move away from its focus on the ailing floppy disk market which had been superseded by CDs. Mr Kerr co-founded Sharptext and was a shareholder in LAN Communications, the company recently acquired by Eircom. He is currently chairman of Conduit Europe and Midia.
Bronway aims to capitalise on the investment here by a number of US and Far-Eastern multinationals which specialise in the manufacture and distribution of CD/DVDs. Current customers include Maxell, Saturn, Banta, Modus Media, Printech, Sonopress and Zomax.
Bronway currently employs 16 people and following this investment it expects staff numbers to increase rapidly to 36.
We are very fortunate to have some big CD/DVD manufacturers located here.; It's provided a very good platform for us to establish what the CD market requires," says Mr O'Malley.
