Business Editor RON GODREY reports on three more dynamic ventures spurred by cash injections from the York Technology Growth Scheme to new heights and better prospects of success.

A hard-headed world means occasionally foregoing doing what you do best in order to work on what is most profitable.

Even KMA Interactive, of York, so revered for its dazzling interactive abstract backdrops which writhe and whirl on a screen behind the likes of R&B singer Craig David, sometimes had to resort to bog-standard corporate orders for websites etc.

Not now. A £25,000 funding package via the York Technology Growth Scheme means that the seven-person team, headed by founder and creative director Kit Monkman and managing director Gill Greaves, can "do what comes-a-nacherly."

That means team members concentrating more on their work in arts and culture in their amazing office in Pavement, a rabbit warren of oak-beamed rooms in a medieval building where hi-tech modernity contrasts with wondrous antiquity.

It is the kind of work which made millions of TV audiences gasp last year when their senses were stippled and splattered with colour as abstract shapes pulsed and swirled on the giant screen interacting with the pounding music at the Smash Hits Poll Winners' Party

Gill says: "A year ago we really needed to focus our business in the area where we have become well-known, ie working in the arts. Before that we had to work in a much broader spectrum.

"It was a brave but necessary action, but we just needed extra support to have the confidence to only work in that area."

They sought the help of Norman Whyte, of York Business Development Ltd, "and he was amazing," says Gill.

Now KMA has a huge portfolio of orders, all arts connected and always creative.

Among its tasks: The recently-completed design of a new Yorkshire website for arts and business; preparing interactive music and sound graphics for Phoenix Dance Company's planned production of Othello in 2005; and creation of a "virtual" museum for the story of Eurotunnel, which will start next month.

KMA was formed eight years ago, during which major contracts have involved creating and maintaining Channel 4's intranet internal communications system and to create websites and databases for the Arts Council. It also provided the dancing dazzle for the Brit Awards and the Prince's Trust's Party In The Park attended by members of the Royal Family.

Updated: 14:55 Tuesday, December 16, 2003