SOFTWARE company Techtonik has won a contract to supply software and support to the world's largest agency brokerage firm, Instinet in New York's Wall Street.

The deal is the latest in a string of export successes for the Sunderland company.

The contract with Instinet, a subsidiary of Reuters Group, brings the total amount of US business won by Techtonik since November to £250,000.

The export success was announced by trade minister Richard Caborn on a visit to the company.

He said: "I am delighted to announce that Techtonik has won a contract to supply software in support of sharedealing to the world's largest agency brokerage firm.

"What is so remarkable is that Techtonik only started exporting in November and this is the fifth deal with a US company since then.

"This is a great example of competing at a world-class level."

The first US success for Techtonik was with Fairchild Semiconductors, based in Portland, Maine. That was followed by orders from DiskCopy in California, Quintiles in North Carolina and Molex in Nebraska.

Peter Johnson, managing director of Techtonik, said: "The US is a very good market, and we are talking to a number of other major companies there.

"We are a small company, employing just five people, but we have proved that we can offer excellent products and service to some of the world's leading companies."

On his visit to Wearside, Mr Caborn also visited Universal Sealants, at Washington, and Exportsite.com, at Sunderland Business Innovation Centre.