A Gwent company developing mobile phones to receive graphic images as well as text is celebrating a £1 million investment.

Pedagog, based at the Suflex Estate at Risca, also designs surveillance systems without cable, is a world leader in multi-media messaging (MMS).

The latest investment, predicted exclusively in Business Argus in May, has been made by Wales Fund Managers and UK Steel Enterprise Fund Managers with the National Assembly

Despite its small size, Pedagog, based at Risca and founded by Dr Olinga Ta'eed, is a world leader in wire-less multi-media, and specifically the transmission of video over narrow bandwidths.

Dr Ta'eed said in May that funding through Finance Wales had enabled the firm to see off two competitiors, one of them a Stock Exchange outfit. The fierce competition and the fallout from it didn't worry him

"This doesn't frighten me because not having money has been our biggest problem and our biggest asset - a problem because we couldn't expand but an asset because we could focus on how to make real revenues out of real products that sell."

Its technology already allows anyone with a mobile phone and hand-held palm computer to transmit and receive high-quality live video pictures over 'pre-3G' networks at any distance.

Before the end of this year, the firm's new 'picture messaging' technology will also enable colour pictures to be transmitted and viewed by the new generation of multi-media mobile (MMS) phones due to launch this summer.

The technology opens up a range of exciting possibilities. Pedagog expects to secure contracts with football clubs and the television industry enabling them to send video clips from football matches or movies over mobile phones.

They will also have introduced 'multi-media messaging' where mobile phone messages are read by an image of your favourite star.

The application of new technology to such projects heralds a massive breakthrough for the telecoms industry. The struggle to exploit the huge new market in mobile phones has become the industry's Holy Grail and Pedagog's innovations could prove to be the long-sought after breakthrough.

The key application for video-over-mobile-phone technology is in closed and open circuit television - where the firm has established the kind of strong, fast-growing revenue stream that still eludes most others.

Because there is no wiring involved, a town centre surveillance installation costs only a fraction of a conventional CCTV system, as cameras can be placed in isolated areas without the need for cabling and digging up streets.

An even more significant aspect of this Open Circuit Television (OCTV) technology is that of remote viewing. A home-owner can see what is happening in every room of their UK home, from the other side of the world.

In another new development called 'Teleme-dicine', Pedagog has a three-phase development plan with the Assembly to provide doctors in accident and emergency departments of hospitals with a palm-top PCs.

These can access specialist advice and medical records as they deal with patients in trauma - even on the other side of the world.

* Pictured: Dr Olinga Ta'eed, of Pedagog