UCD spin-out startup Equilume has secured €550,000 in seed funding from Enterprise Ireland and a number of angel investors based in Ireland, the UK and the USA.

Equilume's founders say that the funding will be used to accelerate sales of its light-mask technology within the global thoroughbred industry.

Equilume was formed in 2012 as a spin-out company from UCD equine research by Dr Barbara Murphy, a lecturer in the university.

The company produces a therapeutic light mask for mares that, by applying weak-intensity blue light to one of the horse's eyes, helps control and predict her reproductive season.

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The reason for it is that horse breeders have, for competitive purposes, denoted January 1 (northern hemisphere) as the 'universal birthday' for foals. Ordinarily, mares come into heat in the summer months and have a pregnancy cycle of around 11 months.

Artificially inducing mares to come into heat in February or March will allow for January births, and the application of blue light tricks the mare's body clock into believing that the summer is upon her.

Horse breeders have tended to put mares into blue-light-laden rooms in late winter to effect this, but the process is expensive.

According to Dr Murphy: “The light mask has already gained considerable traction within the global thoroughbred market and this summer we doubled our sales in the key Australian market.

“This seed funding will help us accelerate our marketing efforts, expand our reach into new market segments and continue to break new boundaries in advancing equine reproductive health technologies with our ongoing new product development.”

Equilume currently employs seven staff and Murphy said that the plan is to increase that to 11 by the end of 2016.