On January 18, 2011, Plastic Logic and the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (RUSNANO, a state-owned company) announced an agreement whereby RUSNANO will lead an investment round of $700 million in Plastic Logic. The company will build a plant in Russia to produce flexible displays using Plastic Logic’s technology.

Plastic Logic was founded in 2000 by researchers from Cambridge University. After building a manufacturing plant in Dresden, Germany, Plastic Logic moved its headquarters to Mountain View, California. The company started by building electronic circuits on plastic substrates, and then moved downstream over time, developing substrate technology, integrating display technology, and finally designing an entire electronic reader called the QUE. Plastic Logic raised approximately $200 million before this investment from RUSNANO, so if all commitments come through, investments in the company will approach $1 billion.

RUSNANO was established in 2007 to foster development of nanotechnology and to encourage the growth of this field in Russia. In November, RUSNANO and Plastic Logic announced an agreement to create Plastic Logic’s second volume production facility for plastic-based displays and to establish a plastic electronics industry in Russia. This recent announcement is the result of their November agreement.

Since first announcing the QUE in 2009, Plastic Logic has been trying to bring the product to market, but manufacturing challenges caused delays. The company cancelled the original product in 2010, and announced that it was working on a next generation device called the QUE ProReader. Most likely, the company realized that its original product would not be competitive since the market has changed. During that time, the e-book reader market rapidly evolved, from monochrome electrophoretic devices like the Kindle, to color e-paper displays, to color TFT LCD tablets/readers, such as the iPad.

In addition to Plastic Logic, companies developing flexible active matrix displays include E Ink Holdings, LG Display, and HP. We expect to see the first round of flexible active matrix displays enter the market in 2011. In the long run, Plastic Logic’s technology could enable it to tap into a market with huge growth potential. As forecast in the DisplaySearch Flexible Displays and Electronics Report, the market for flexible displays will pass $8 billion in 2018.