OREANDA-NEWS. Braveheart Investment Group plc (AIM: BRH), is pleased to announce that in connection with a follow-on funding round in Kirkstall Limited ("Kirkstall"), an existing portfolio company, it has invested £138,000 in cash to cornerstone an investment round of £250,000 from existing Kirkstall shareholders. Following completion, Kirkstall will be debt free and Braveheart will own 28% of its issued share capital and appoint a director to the Kirkstall Board.

Kirkstall has developed a system of interconnected chambers for cell and tissue culture in laboratories. The company is based near Sheffield, Yorkshire, and the patented technology is used by researchers and drug development companies to maintain living cells in a nutrient flow. The technology, often referred to as 'organ on a plate', provides a way to model the behavior of multiple human organs interconnected by a flow system that mimics the flow of blood in the body. Kirkstall believes that its technology could drive down the development cost of drugs, nutraceuticals, cosmetics and personal care products by enabling the testing of drugs on living tissue, greatly reducing the need for expensive animal testing and improving the chances of success in human clinical trials. Kirkstall had over £150,000 of revenue for the year ended 31 January 2016, operating close to breakeven with a loss of just under £8,000, and it expects to achieve profitability in the next financial year.

Trevor Brown, Chief Executive of Braveheart, said: " This round of investment comes at an important time for Kirkstall, enabling it to expand and develop marketing and technical support to customers across Europe and the US. It represents a further important step in the implementation of Braveheart's new investment strategy"

Dr Malcolm Wilkinson, CEO of Kirkstall, added: "Over the last few years we have built a loyal and enthusiastic user group mainly in the UK academic community and in the last 12 months commercial interest in our system has grown, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry. Our recent product launch into the USA market has been successful and our focus is now on supporting the large commercial organizations who want to use our products on a daily basis.  The support being shown by Braveheart and our other shareholders comes at a crucial time in Kirkstall's development."