MOSCOW (
MRC) -- BASF Venture Capital has invested EUR1 million in the technology company SmartKem, based in St. Asaph, Wales, as per BASF's press release.
The total investment of the financing round was EUR3 million. Further investors with equal terms were Octopus Investments and Entrepreneurs Fund.
SmartKem is a leader in research and development of high performance organic semiconductor inks. These inks are used in printed thin film transistors (TFTs), which drive unbreakable and fully flexible electronics, for example leading-edge flexible OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) displays.
"The future belongs to flexible displays. First flexible smartphones are already in the market. Customers will benefit from a lot of useful lightweight, fully flexible and rollable electronics products based on organic TFTs. Our investment in SmartKem and our extensive Joint Development Program will take us a great step forward in bringing this future-oriented technology faster to the market," said Dirk Nachtigal, Managing Director, BASF Venture Capital.
Steve Kelly, CEO of SmartKem, added: "Groundbreaking advances in material technology will drive the future of printed and flexible electronics. We are happy to join forces in research and development with BASF to progress smart chemistry for the new generation of flexible displays and circuits, which will address future market needs."
As MRC
informed before, by acquiring a majority stake in InnovationLab GmbH in May 2014, Merck and BASF, the world's largest petrochemical producer, are increasing their involvement in order to continue the successful scientific work of the Heidelberg-based research and transfer platform for organic electronics in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region.
SmartKem is a leading supplier of high performance organic semiconductor inks for the manufacture of printed TFTs. SmartKem’s inks can be processed on flexible and lightweight plastic substrates to enable rugged and truly flexible electronics.
BASF Venture Capital GmbH was established in 2001 as a wholly owned subsidiary of BASF New Business GmbH, Ludwigshafen, Germany, with the aim of exploring new growth potentials based on investment in startup companies and funds.
BASF is the leading chemical company. It produces a wide range of chemicals, for example solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile and automotive industries. BASF had sales of about EUR74 billion in 2013 and over 112,000 employees as of the end of the year.
MRC