Iatia IPO closes early after big demand

Optical technologies group Iatia has closed its initial public offering two days early after successfully raising $5 million to assist its commercialisation program.

The Box Hill company's capital raising closed over-subscribed on Monday after the 20 million shares on offer were snatched up by investors at 25c each.

Chief executive officer Philippe Cussinet said the IPO gave the company a market capitalisation of $27.4 million based on the issue price, with the stock set to float in early April.

"We're delighted that the offer has closed heavily over-subscribed," Cussinet said.

"It is clear that investors have identified Iatia as a valuable investment opportunity, with real revenues and exciting growth prospects."

Iatia holds the global licensing rights to quantitative phase imaging (QPI) technology developed at the University of Melbourne.

The technology is said to enable the digital construction and manipulation of images without a need for special optics equipment.

The money raised in the IPO, together with further funding of $6 million secured from private investors last year, will be used to commercialise the QPI technology, as well as Iatia's Integrated Optical Platform (IOP).

According to the company's prospectus, the technologies held potential for use not only in medical vision sciences, but also in astronomy and neutron radiography.

Tolhurst Noall Corporate underwrote the IPO, with managing director Peter Leigh stating there had been strong backing for Iatia's listing.

Leigh said the fact the offering had closed over-subscribed reflected a hunger in the retail investor market for quality stocks.