There are a lot of ways to judge the viability of a fledgling industry, but one fairly safe approach is by seeing if investment money is flowing into businesses, and what companies are doing with the funding.

Watching the flexible and printed electronics (PE) industry’s financial path has been instructive. There were numerous failures along the way; Solyndra, Konarka and Nanosolar, to name three, received hundreds of millions of dollars of funding before it shut its doors.

As a result, it seemed as if the PE industry saw a serious reduction of funding coming into the field in recent years, leaving quite a few companies without the funding needed to continue on.

Interestingly, it seems as though the investment spigot has opened again in the field, as a wide range of companies has received more than $120 million in funding in the last three months, from solar manufacturers and equipment companies to smart cards, screen, printed battery, carbon nanotube and semiconductor inks. It is even more interesting that many of these companies are using the funding to bring their products to the market.

The thin film photovoltaic (PV) field has been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn, with quite a few organic (OPV) and thin film PV companies being weeded out. At the end of September 2014, though, Heliatek received €18 million ($23 million) in its Seres C Funding Round from AQTON SE, Bosch, BASF and others.

Heliatek is the leader in the OPV field, and its HeliaFilm line of products is in production for the building integrated PV (BIPV) market. The company has made gains in cell efficiencies, and has successfully developed roll-to-roll production capabilities, and is seeking entry into the buidling and automotive markets, with prototypes and pilot in the field.

“This fresh money will help us to reach our set of operational and sales goals until 2016, including the introduction of transparent HeliaFilm in production by the middle of next year,” Thibaud Le Séguillon, CEO of Heliatek, said.

In mid-September 2014, Kateeva, the makers of the YIELDjet deposition equipment system for flexible OLED panels, reported that it closed its Series D round with $38 million in financing, with Samsung Venture Investment Corporation (SVIC) joining existing investors.

“In partnership with SVIC, we’re delighted to offer continued support to Kateeva as they rapidly scale operations to support accelerating demand for OLED manufacturing solutions,” said Fahri Diner, managing director of Sigma Partners, who participated to the funding and is a member of the Board of Directors of Kateeva.

Two companies announced public offerings of their stock. Identiv, a specialist in smart cards and contactless readers, priced an underwritten public offering of $30 million, with 2,000,000 shares of its common stock set at $15.00 per share. The money is expected to be used for acquisitions and investments in complementary technologies.

Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. announced in late August that it received $8 million in new funding from existing stockholders. Ascent Solar is an interesting company, as it has commercialized its solar technology through portable solar chargers, and has gone global with its products.

“Our business model and strategy has undergone tremendous change which has translated into growing interest in our new products, resulting in strong revenue growth over last year,” said Dr. Amit Kumar, chairman of Ascent Solar. “While the repositioning of the company is challenging, we now feel that we have completed much of the ground work necessary for us to create value going forward.”

Not all of the investments are in the tens of millions of dollars, but, in their own way, are significant. Take the case of ISORG, which is focused on organic image sensors and displays. In mid-July, ISORG announced it had received $8.7 million from investors. This will allow the company to move from pilot to mass production in 2015.

SmartKem manufactures organic semiconductor inks for printed thin film transistors, which are used for flexible OLED displays and other flexible electronics. In August, the company recently received €3 million, or $4 million, with BASF Venture Capital a key investor. BASF cited the growing interest in flexible, rollable electronics as an interesting technology.

SouthWest NanoTechnologies Inc. (SWeNT), a specialist in carbon nanotube inks, received $2.7 million in new financing in two transactions. SWeNT will use the funding to expand production at its Norman, OK plant and add personnel.

“We need to add to our capacity to meet the demand for our Specialty Multi-wall (SMW) products driven by our strategic partnerships and distribution agreements,” said SWeNT president Dave Arthur. “This additional funding will also be used for R&D to develop additional carbon nanotube materials and inks that meet customer specifications.”



There is an investment from late June that I wish to mention. Imprint Energy, which is developing flexible, thin printed batteries, received $6 million in funding from, among others, Phoenix Venture Partners and Flextronics. The funding will be used to accelerate the development of its rechargeable ZincPoly printable battery chemistry, with an eye on the wearable electronics and Internet of Things markets.

“PVP sees Imprint Energy’s highly differentiated printable battery technology as a key enabling component to accelerating the growth and emergence of wearable electronics and the Internet of Things,” said Dr. John Chen of Phoenix Venture Partners.

These investments show that interest in the PE field remains significant, and that investors see potential for these applications. It is interesting that the applications being funded span the PE field, rather than one hot field, and that the money is mostly being used for manufacturing products.