E Ink has received a $25 million investment from TOPPAN Printing, a provider of color filter arrays in the flat panel display industry. The deal significantly expands their strategic partnership to commercialize electronic paper.
E Ink and TOPPAN, as the distributor in Japan, will supply front plane laminate (FPL) products, a component that bears electronic ink and is used to make electronic ink displays, to display manufacturers, who will assemble the FPL with a TFT back plane to make electronic ink display modules. With TOPPAN's support, E Ink will play a primary role in designing-in applications up the value chain by selling to manufacturers of consumer electronic and mobile communication products.
The initial market target is high resolution, graphic displays for handheld devices. According to DisplaySearch, the world leader in market research for the flat panel display industry, this is the fastest growing segment of the flat panel display industry, forecast to exceed $10 billion in the next few years. These devices encompass a variety of personal information and communication products such as PDAs, eBooks, mobile phones and other emerging applications enabled by paper-like displays.
E Ink and TOPPAN -- which have significant synergies in their capabilities and strategy with respect to the flat panel display industry, ePaper and eMedia -- will build a strong business platform for electronic ink technologies that will provide enabling paper-like display solutions, drive strong growth in revenue and profits, and solidify their market leadership.
E Ink Corporation was founded in 1997 to create a new medium for visual communications. E Ink's electronic ink display technology helps unleash the full power of our connected world by uniquely combining a paper-like reading experience with the ability to access information anytime, anywhere. E Ink's technology delivers the look, form and utility of paper encompassing broad design freedom, manufacturing flexibility and the ultimate in readability and portability. The company markets two types of displays: Ink-In-Motion displays for advertising and promotions and active-matrix graphical displays for smart handheld devices.
E Ink is a private corporation that includes among its investors and strategic partners TOPPAN Printing Company, Philips Components, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., Motorola, Inc., Lucent Technologies, Creavis GmbH, The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc., Havas (a division of the Vivendi Group in France), Langenscheidt Verlag, The Hearst Corporation, Atlas Venture, Applied Technology and Solstice Capital. E Ink is headquartered in Cambridge, MA, and has an office in the Tokyo, Japan area.
For additional information, visit www.eink.com.