Fredericton-based Inversa Systems, which makes scanning technology for the construction industry, has raised $500,000 from the New Brunswick Innovation Fund and private venture capital firm, Technology Venture Corp. of Moncton.  

The four-year-old company, which was spun out of the Laboratory for Threat Material Detection at the University of New Brunswick, manufactures inspection equipment that allows engineers to see inside large structures without taking them apart. It will use the proceeds to release a previously announced $2.1 million funding from Acoa’s Atlantic Innovation Fund.

“We continue to be impressed with the company’s ability to get in front of the customer and use their feedback to improve the product to suit their use,” Susan Hicks, President and CEO of TVC, said in a statement. “It’s their market focus that made us see the company as a promising growth opportunity for us.”

TVC is a private VC fund created after Jon Manship, now the chairman, sold a company called Spielo Manufacturing Inc., which makes video-lottery terminals, to Rhode Island–based Gtech Holdings Corp. for as much as US$185 million in 2004. He opened TVC with the proceeds.

Inversa has been using  its technology to monitor the soundness of New Brunswick’s highway and overpass infrastructure and is now undertaking similar work in Ontario. It is also working with the Canadian Department of National Defence at CFB Gagetown to examine the structural integrity of culverts throughout the base.

The Times & Transcript reported that the company is now adapting its technology for use by the offshore oil  and industry.