Plastic Logic in Deal with RUSNANO
RUSNANO aims to encourage the growth of Russian nanotech industry by co-investing in projects likely to make a significant economic or social contribution, and is developing partnerships with the world’s leading nanotechnology centres.
Plastic Logic said the investment underscored the company’s global leadership in the emerging plastic electronics industry.
The company will keep is R&D centre in Cambridge and its first factory in Germany, plus corporate HQ in California.
Plastic Logic, founded a decade ago, has been developing technology originating from Cambridge University in the research labs of Prof Sir Richard Friend, and backed from the start by Hermann Hauser.
The core technology is about creating plastic as opposed to silicon chips, making microprocessors a lot cheaper.
Recently the company announced that it was abandoning production of its electronic reader, which used the chips, but indicated that it would come up with a more advanced version.
Commenting on today’s announcement, Georgy Kolpachev, RUSNANO managing director, said: “The production facility for the next generation of plastic displays will become the first step to establish the new branch of an electronics industry in Russia.
“By the time of the launch, the Russian facility will be the world’s most advanced fabrication plant in the plastic electronics industry.”
Richard Archuleta, CEO of Plastic Logic, said: “This investment will enable us to dramatically expand operations in support of volume production of our next-generation products, and to continue to advance our technology platform to deliver our broader long-term vision.”
He added that PL had looked at multiple countries for its expansion efforts, but Russia came up with the best deal, offering access to “an enormous talent pool of scientists and engineers, and proximity to our European centres in Cambridge and Dresden.
“We have been very impressed with the caliber of the RUSNANO organization and, most importantly, its commitment to undertake the significant investment required to build a world-class volume production centre capable of producing hundreds of thousands of units a month.”