AN award-winning hi-tech Blackburn company hopes to raise almost £1 million to finance its growth by joining Ofex.

Millbrook Scientific Instruments will issue 9.5 million shares at 10p each as it seeks admission to the share market for smaller companies.

Millbrook's core product, the Chemical Microscope, is a unique and innovative desktop instrument for the analysis of solid surfaces using Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS). SIMS is a highly-sensitive technique that gives precise and comprehensive data about the chemical make up of a surface.

Investors will be required to subscribe for a minimum of 10,000 shares and, assuming a full take-up of the offer, market capitalisation on admission to Ofex will be £2.66m. Millbrook successfully completed a private placing in February 2002, raising just over £150,000.

The increased working capital will be used principally to strengthen the global sales function, provide additional technical back-up for customers, streamline manufacturing systems and spearhead an effective development programme.

Chief executive Peter Stefanini said the Chemical Microscope was unique and scored heavily over more expensive and less versatile rivals.

"Its ease and speed of use makes it ideal for quality control applications involving surface analysis," he said. "Now that revenues are coming through strongly, this is the right time for a vigorous sales and marketing push in global markets. The Ofex flotation will provide us with the platform we need to exploit the very great opportunities ahead."

Mr Stefanini said the company hoped to double its work-force at its headquarters at the Blackburn Technology Management Centre over the next year.

The Chemical Microscope is used both as a research tool and for quality control. Applications include electronics, medical, biosciences, coatings, corrosion, and surface analysis involving glass, metals, plastics and other materials.

The company has sold eight instruments to date and customers include Pilkington Plc, British Nuclear Fuels, The University of Liverpool, the University of Wales, Johns Hopkins University (USA), Philips Electronics (UK) and Imperial College. Millbrook Instruments was founded in 1995 by John Eccles, Tim Steele and Ron Unwin. With extensive experience of SIMS and scientific instrument design, they set out to design a low-cost surface analyser for the wider quality control market.

By 1997 a prototype was developed and, in 1999, following further investment, sales started in earnest. In November 2000, Peter Stefanini joined as chairman and chief executive, bringing

extensive general management experience.

Millbrook has won a number of important awards for the Chemical Microscope, including the Millennium Products Award from The Design Council, the Annual Achievement Award from the US Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers and the R&D Top 100 Award from R & D Magazine of the USA.

The company has a global distribution network already in place and new distributors were appointed last year in the USA, France, Benelux, China, Japan, and Australia.