All systems go for Indigo

Media Release: 16 November 2007

Powerhouse investment means its all systems go for Indigo

Christchurch based, angel investment group Powerhouse Ventures Limited is pleased to announce a deal to co-invest alongside the New Zealand Venture Investment Funds Seed Co-Investment Fund into exciting meshed network innovators Indigo Systems.

Indigo Systems design and build wireless mesh networks for environmental monitoring and control applications. The network is comprised of a series of "nodes" distributed around, for example, a vineyard, which wirelessly transmits environmental data such as air temperature and soil moisture to a central monitoring station. This data can be used for a range of purposes, such as automatically activating frost-protection systems or controlling irrigation systems.

Continuous environmental monitoring is of great value to vineyard managers. The growing trends in "precision" viticulture demand more accurate and reliable data from the field to make more informed management decisions. Unlike other monitoring solutions, Indigo's mesh network has overcome many constraints for widespread adoption including:

- Low hardware cost per node and sensor allowing much more intensive, yet economical, real-time monitoring and control.
- No data transmission costs.
- Ability to control associated systems including frost-protection and irrigation.

Indigo Managing Director Dr David Rankin said, “We are very pleased to partner with Powerhouse and NZVIF. Their investment will allow Indigo to deliver further orders to its initial customers and expand into the domestic market. and ultimately to take what we believe is a great innovation to a much bigger market.”

Powerhouse Ventures was launched to provide angel investors with access to qualified, high potential investment opportunities. The organisation provides promising young companies a significant source for capital raising and business expertise.

Dr Stephen Hampson of Powerhouse “Indigo Systems interested us because they have taken a technology innovation and found a way in which they can provide proven benefits to a large potential market. The many high net-worth individuals with vast business experience and ability associated with Powerhouse will enable us to make a significant difference to emerging high growth start-ups as ’angel investors’”

ENDS

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