Homeland Security, travel, Aviation

Explosives Detection Company Gets $20 Million

Erik Mellgren 4/9/08

Reveal Imaging, a Bedford, MA-based maker of explosives detection devices, said Tuesday that it has collected $20.3 million from a group of investors led by BBH Capital Partners III. The fund, managed by Brown Brothers Harriman of New York, put up $18.75 million, while the rest of the new money came from Reveal’s existing investors, including Waltham, MA-based Greylock Partners, Cambridge, MA-based General Catalyst Partners and Boston-based Flybridge Capital Partners.

Reveal’s luggage-screen systems employ tomography technology similar to a medical CT scan and are used at airports and other high-security facilities. Its machinery can be purchased in the form of stand-alone units or integrated into luggage handling conveyor systems.

Last year Xconomy wrote about a company in a similar niche, Passport Systems. The Acton, MA producer of cargo screening systems raised $7.4 million last November.

Erik Mellgren is a Swedish journalist who worked for Xconomy Boston in 2008 as part of the Stanford Innovation Journalism Fellowship program. His real job is with Ny Teknik, a leading technology and innovation magazine in Sweden, but he loved seeing the Red Sox at Fenway.