CAMBRIDGE, England, Jan. 24 -- Sentec has completed a deal that boosts the value of the concepts-to-company firm to 4.5 million pounds by selling part of its holding in the optical communications firm Polatis. Polatis, which is in the process of developing a new type of photonic switch, is the third new company created by Sentec and was founded in July 2000.
    As part of Polatis' first funding round Sentec has transferred shares valued at more than 1 million pounds to a team of venture capitalists and Andrew Dames, the CEO of Polatis. Sentec will retain a significant shareholder.
    "This is an excellent example of how we can create real value through exploiting technology," said Andrew Howe, CEO of Sentec. "This is a very early stage to be seeing cash returns from our spin-out companies and we see this is a major vindication of our business model."
    As well as retaining a share in Polatis, Sentec also keeps a substantial stake in its other two spin-off companies, HoloTag and SmartBead Technologies.