MSBi Capital Invests $1Million in company presenting at Emerging Technology Venture Conference 2004 in Montreal
MSBi Capital Invests $1Million in company presenting at Emerging Technology Venture Conference 2004 in Montreal
Silk Displays to deliver a new generation of polymer based LCD displays
Montreal, Canada, September 16, 2004 — MSBi Capital, a provider of seed and early stage venture capital for the commercialization of innovations in information technology, the physical sciences and life sciences, announced today a $1Million investment in Silk Displays, Inc. — developer of smart plastic materials designed to meet a wide range of critical performance and environmental parameters for the manufacturing of low cost flexible and rugged liquid crystal displays (“LCDs”). Silk Displays was one of the twelve emerging technology companies presenting at the Emerging Technology Venture Conference (ETVC) 2004 held in Montreal, Quebec on September 14th and 15th.
“The LCD display industry is a highly lucrative albeit extremely competitive space,” said Chris Arsenault, partner at MSBi Capital. “After working closely with the Silk Displays management team over the last few months, we believe the team has the expertise and the skills to deliver a highly competitive product. Silk Displays has a disruptive approach, which once proven will open new market applications for LCDs and will offer a competitive replacement for glass-based displays.”
In partnership with McGill University, Silk Displays has drawn upon unique techniques previously developed for much more demanding photonics applications in order to develop a proprietary approach to creating all-plastic LDCs for this US$63 billion (2006) market. Instead of searching for a single, perfect polymer material, the Company defines all the performance and environment parameters required and then designs a multi-layer, plastic laminate. The combination of the layers together creates a structure precisely designed to meet all requirements. A key innovation is to substitute not only the glass in current LCDs, but to replace the entire complex structure of dissimilar materials by a simple, solid state laminate consisting of layers of plastic film. Silk Displays’ uniquely powerful approach enables the Company to quickly design and produce plastic laminates required for all-plastic LCDs.
“The glass-based LCD industry is booming, but current suppliers can’t provide differentiated products to meet the requirements of specific high value, market niches,” said Paul Higgins, President and CEO of Silk Displays. “This creates an exciting opportunity for a supplier of all-plastic LCD displays that can produce high value displays in relatively small volumes and at a lower cost point. Silk Displays will provide rugged, reliable, lightweight and flexible displays with significantly better performance at 1/2 the cost of existing ruggedized LCD products.”
Silk Displays’ management team is comprised of highly experienced executives. including: Paul Higgins (President & CEO) who brings over 22 years of executive, management, marketing and business development experience with high technology companies including Lockheed Martin, Unisys, Nortel, Emerson, Lumenon Innovative Lightwave Technology; Dr. Mark Andrews (CTO) the former co-founder and CTO of Lumenon, a photonics company using polymers in leading edge applications, a former Principal Investigator in the Materials Research Division at Bell Laboratories (Lucent) and a member of the Department of Chemistry at McGill University since 1990; and Bell Fong (VP, Engineering) who has over 24 years of engineering, program management and management experience with high technology companies including Harris Farinon, Lockheed Martin, Nortel, Emerson, Bombardier, and Lumenon.
About MSBi Capital
MSBi Capital is a seed and early stage venture capital fund dedicated to commercializing innovations in information technology, the physical sciences and life sciences. MSBi Capital has a particular focus on establishing and building companies based on technology advancements and inventions originating from the universities of McGill, Sherbrooke and Bishop’s, as well as their affiliated hospitals and research institutes. MSBi Capital maintains offices in Montreal, Québec, Canada. More information about MSBi is available at www.msbi.ca.
About ETVC 2004
Emerging Technology Venture Conference (ETVC) 2004 is Canada’s first international conference to bring together companies in emerging technologies with international investors. ETVC 2004 will showcase Quebec and Ontario’s best technologies, projects and companies in Infotech, Nanotech and Robotics to angel investors and venture capital firms from Quebec, Canada, U.S., Europe and Asia. The approximate 250 participants expected to attend this event will include some of the most prominent North America VC firms and financial institutions, academics, corporate labs and institutional investors.
ETVC 2004 is being organized in collaboration with Osler Hoskin & Harcourt, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Smart & Biggar Fetherstonhaugh, Développement Économique Longueuil, CEIM, Valorisation-Recherche Québec, Avant-Garde Information Systems, RBC Royal Bank, Desjardins Venture Capital Group, Development Bank of Canada, Solidarity Funds QFL, Novacap, MSBi Capital, Verrecchia Group Communications, Sofitel Montréal, GTI Capital, TechnoCap, Capimont Technologies, Montréal International, National Angel Organization, NanoQuebec, Tremplin Entreprises (Paris), PROMPT-Québec, SmartStart. For more information on ETVC, visit the web site at www.etvc.ca.
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Editorial Contact:
Helene Jutras, MSBi Capital
514–982–9044, hjutras@msbi.ca
Media Contact:
Marlene Kovac
Verrecchia Group Communications
Tel: (514) 935–0166, Ext. 148
Email: marlene@vergroup.com
