Rosnano invests in Plastic Logic

Back in August 2010, the Network spread information that the state-owned company Rosnano is going to buy out a controlling stake in Plastic Logic. Let me remind you that this company many times promised to release an electronic “reader” of a new type, which should have been, if not better than everyone else, then at least be at the level of “readers” of other manufacturers. As a result, the company never released anything, although it built a plant for the production of such devices. It was announced that, say, “the grenades of the wrong model”, and the device was outdated by the time of the promised release, so the release is canceled, and the design process of the display from Plastic Logic for the second generation reader is launched. So, the other day it became known that Rosnano invested a rather large amount in Plastic Logic.

The total investment is $ 230 million, of which 150 have already been transferred. In the future, the total investment may be increased to 700 million US dollars. Rosnano was also joined by Oak Investment Partners, which offered investments in the amount of $ 50 million.
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Why so much money? The fact is that a plant for the production of plastic electronic displays will be built in Zelenograd. The plant should be built in 2013-2014. By the way, in November last year, Anatoly Chubais promised to build this plant in Zelenograd. It is planned that the productivity of the enterprise will amount to several hundred thousand plastic displays per month. And the production will go to the displays of the second generation.

Although, one should think, in 2013-2014, the production technology of displays will be significantly different from the current ones, as if by that time it was not necessary to postpone the release of new displays and devices based on them, since they will become obsolete again. But in principle, the initiative seems to be as good as you think?

By the way, the company Plastic Logic itself is not a gang of watering can, led by someone who is incomprehensible. It was founded back in 2000 by a team of researchers from the Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory. The company has relatively many patents in its assets that relate to the production of electronics, individual devices and functional units. Of course, there are some concerns regarding the reality of the new project, but still I would like to wish the initiators of this project good luck.