Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Plastic Logic has chosen a site in Dresden, Germany, to build a plant to make flexible active-matrix display backplanes based on polymer semiconductor materials , and has raised $100 million (£51 million) equity in a finance round to fund the commercialization of the technology and pay for the facility.
The technology will enable the creation of electronic books where the content is downloaded wirelessly and flexible electronic newspapers.
Simon Jones, vice president of product development at Plastic Logic, said that while the greenfield plant will cost about $100 million "the equity we are raising and have raised, the grants we have received and the debt that we have taken on is much more than $100 million, and we will use the money to accelerate the technology transfer and work with partners to develop products that will utilize the displays . So a big portion of the fundraising is targeted at increasing the workforce at Cambridge and develop the products and various types of content that will drive this technology."
Plastic Logic has already developed a roughly 12-inch diagonal display prototype working that combines an active plastic logic backplane with an electrophoretic display technology from E Ink). The company announced a collaboration with E Ink in December 2004.
Nearly all of Plastic Logic's previous investors are participating in what is the company's fourth round of fund raising. It is being led by Oak Investment Partners and Tudor Investment Corporation. Existing investors Amadeus, which led the seed financing of Plastic Logic, Intel Capital, Bank of America, BASF Venture Capital, Quest for Growth and Merifin Capital also participated.
The financing is one of the largest in the history of European venture capital. Plastic Logic says the $100 million is the 'first closing' of the round, implying that it may raise yet more.
A series C round that started off by raising $8 million in January 2005 eventually raised $24 million by the end of that year, bringing the total raised to nearly $50 million.
The Dresden factory will be completed by the end of the year and have an initial capacity of more than a million display modules per year and production will start mid 2008. Dresden in the Silicon Saxony region of eastern Germany has been chosen as the facility location following an extensive worldwide site selection process.
By: DocMemory
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