LESS than a year after leaving university two Cardiff graduates who formed their own Internet business are in the pink - as the first company to receive an Entrepreneurship Scholarship from the new Know-ledge Exploitation Fund.

John Schlamm and Steven Aicheler set up innovative company blushingbuyer.co.uk 11 months ago, a website selling items that people would find too embarrassing to buy over the counter.

The pair are now on track to operating a thriving Internet business which receives 200 visits a day from customers looking to buy anything from piles remedies to condoms on-line.

The two, who thought up the idea while they were at college together and started the enterprise in a spare bedroom, will be receiving a weekly allowance of £144 for a nine-month period - vital support as they take the company into its second year. The scholarships are part of a raft of funding being made available to encourage entrepreneurship from Education and Learning Wales (ELWa) through its Knowledge Exploitat-ion Fund (KEF).

KEF director Pat Jones said: "The economic future of Wales depends on evolving into a knowledge-led economy, sustained by a new generation of higher-value businesses. "One way to achieve that is to nurture and support the young people with the ideas and the talent for business who are emerging from our colleges and universities."

Steve Aicheler, Blushingbuyer's 25-year-old managing director, who has a degree in civil engineering, said that since leaving college they had to work as a barman and a helpdesk operator to have enough to live on. "KEF support means we have been able to give up the day jobs."