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After $35M and a Plan for Flexible Wearables, What Happened to Polyera? Polyera won't produce the Wove Band, as it folds into new materials company Flexterra, after investment challenges, layoffs and a pivot away from product. 13
Karis Hustad - Staff writer
3/10/17 @12:23pm in Tech 3/10/17 @12:23pm
In fall of 2015, Skokie-based materials science company Polyera burst onto the wearables scene with its flexible display Wove Band. There were few places you could look in the tech world without seeing a demo of the product (including Wired , TechCrunch , PC Mag , CNBC , The Verge and even right here on Chicago Inno ), a wearable with an e-ink display that wrapped around the wrist. The idea was to create a truly flexible display that could twist, bend and fold, and a wearable that didn't have the battery life or screen space constraints of the others on the market. The device was also meant to show off the potential for Polyera's flexible screen technology, which the company believed could be used in other applications (think tablets that roll up like newspapers). That fall, Polyera said they expected to get the product to market by 2016. What took place instead were layoffs, a pivot and an uncertain future for a hyped consumer product that raised $35 million in funding. Polyera and Italian materials company SAES Group have created a new company called Flexterra. Both companies contributed equipment, intellectual property assets and staff to the new venture, and future operations of Flexterra will be financed by a new investment from SAES and Polyera’s investors. This new company will not develop consumer electronics products in-house, but rather develop flexible display materials and work with display manufacturing partners to bring this tech to the market. SAES will serve as a materials manufacturing partner to Flexterra, and Polyera will be a technology brand within the company. While Flexterra is still based in Skokie and the company maintains a lab in Taiwan, their largely product-focused San Francisco office is no more, and California employees were let go between January and July of 2016. The company is down to 30 employees, from a high of around 100 employees in 2015. Former CEO Phil Inagaki has moved on to a new company (Cambridge, Mass. 3D printing startup Voxel8) and Doni Fabrizio, formerly COO at SAES, has been named CEO of the company. Most notably, they will not be producing the Wove Band like originally planned; Flexterra is in discussions with an outside end product company to take the Wove Band, or a similar product, forward. "The overall mission and business model of Flexterra returned to the 'origin' of Polyera, which started solely as materials company," said Antonio Facchetti, chief scientific officer of Flexterra to Chicago Inno over email. "We [refocused] R&D to enable the first products to be realized as soon as possible rather than carry multiple R&D lines at the same time." Those familiar with the past year and a half of Polyera's business say the focus on product didn't go as anticipated, and the startup ran into issues fundraising. Now they're hoping their portfolio of intellectual property and R&D efforts will create a path for their flexible electronics technology moving forward. Wove Band (Credit: Polyera)
Polyera started back in 2005 as a materials company based off the work of Northwestern University chemists Tobin Marks and Antonio Facchetti. For 10 years the team quietly worked out of a lab in Skokie developing proprietary technology (even to the extent of inventing new molecules) that eventually would have a commercial application--in this case, a wearable device that could twist, bend and flex. Previously, the startup raised $35 million in equity funding, including a $24.5 million Series C from Chinese firms Chengwei Capital and Tsing Capital in 2012. Finally in 2015, after opening a manufacturing lab in Taiwan, a product office in San Francisco and maintaining the research and development office in Skokie, Polyera debuted the Wove Band. In a conversation with Chicago Inno in October 2015, Inagaki doubled down on Polyera's product focus, saying "the Wove Band is meant to be a meaningful product, it is not an experiment. " At the time, the company projected the Wove Band would be available to the public by mid-2016. Behind the scenes, however, things weren't going according to schedule, according to those who were with the company at the time. The company raised bridge funding through 2015, largely from existing investors, with the goal of raising a $25 million Series D round, which would help the company bring the product to fruition. But discussions with new investors fell through. Those familiar with investment talks said VCs mentioned they wanted to see some additional market acceptance (such as a Kickstarter campaign) and more manufacturing progress, or passed because didn't have the domain expertise (the fact that Polyera was positioned both as a B2C and B2B company also made it a more difficult pitch). In addition, launching a hardware product and paying for talent to develop it can get expensive, especially with an office in the Bay Area and the need for funding--or a change in direction--grew increasingly apparent. In December 2015, final talks with investors ended. There was a board meeting to decide next steps for the company, and the board voted to forgo product and instead refocus on their research and development roots. By early January 2016, Polyera decided to close the California office and 35 employees that worked on Polyera's consumer electronics product development were laid off over the next six months. The company also spent those six months searching for the right partner moving forward. They were in talks with several European and Chinese companies involved in the display supply chain, but as summer rolled around and funds were dwindling, Polyera decided to enter into an agreement with the SAES Group to form Flexterra. Two of Polyera's previous investors, Tsing Capital and Chengwei Capital, will contribute up to $7 million of additional funding to Flexterra, while SAES is contributing $13 million in cash into the deal. The final closing of the deal is set for later in 2017. Wove Band (Credit: Polyera)
Polyera had an on-going collaboration in the area of organic light-emitting transistors dating back to 2010 with SAES. The 77-year-old Italian company, which has been a pioneer in getter technology, has as long history in the advanced materials and display industries. In more recent years, SAES has expanded their product offerings to include getter and encapsulation technology for OLED displays. They also have the customer relationships and production capabilities that can help Polyera scale tech faster. "We knew they had been successful bringing new technologies based on new materials to market, numerous times, so it was an obvious fit," said Brendan Florez, the former president of Polyera who is currently helping the company through its transition to Flexterra. The smartwatch and wearables market hasn't taken off as predicted, even beyond Polyera. Smartwatch device shipments declined by 51.6 percent year-over-year as of the end of 2016. Fitbit  laid off  110 workers in January after slow holiday sales. Jawbone is reportedly moving away from consumer products to focus on the healthcare market. Moving forward, Flexterra will be focused on the Polyera materials technology, but not the consumer electronics product technology. They will be focused on developing Polyera's flexible transistor materials technology and bringing flexible display products to market through display manufacturing partners. Flexterra's R&D roadmap includes moving beyond e-ink displays and expanding to color and OLED displays, as well as printed electronics applications such as sensors. Flexterra is also exploring licensing opportunities for Polyera’s consumer electronics products technology. Chief scientific officer Facchetti added that he's looking forward to working with electronic materials that enable organic thin film transistor (OTFT) technologies, which feature bright, vivid color on thin paper-like displays. "The opportunity is to focus resources and to ensure our consumer electronics customers that we do not intend to 'compete' within the same product space," he added. "This should push the introduction of our materials." FILED UNDER:

After $35M and a Plan for Flexible Wearables, What Happened to Polyera?

Thursday, February 11, 2016 5:45:00 AM PDT | VentureDeal
Skokie, Illinois  --  Advanced materials technology company Polyera has landed $13.66 million in new venture capital debt funding, according to an SEC regulatory filing. Polyera provides dielectric, interfacial and semiconductor materials for the printed and flexible electronics industry. Investors in the financing were not disclosed, nor was how the company intends to use the funding proceeds. A total of nine investors participated in the offering. Polyera is still seeking $4 million in additional debt financing, according to the filing. Print Page
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inbox for free! E-ink screens are changing the way we read, and they’re becoming increasingly popular on smart phones and wearable gadgets. But what about flexible e-ink screens that can bend and curve into any shape or size? Sounds crazy, but the technology is already here. For their first release, flexible electronics company Polyera is launching Wove , a wearable gadget that’s basically a computer built like a slap bracelet that you can wrap around your wrist. Wove may look like a smartwatch at first glance, but unlike other wearable touch screens, this one is capable of bending and twisting like a piece of paper. Most wearables are built to be durable and unyielding, so bending would be seen as a bad thing — but Wove is pioneering the development of electronics screens that flex by design. Polyera has been working on the development of flexible screen technology for years, and first brought Wove to full project scale when co-founder Phil Inagaki had the idea for the device more than two years ago. Using Polyera’s patented digital fabric tech, Wove makes full use of the company’s many years of experience with flexible electronics, transistors, and displays. One of the reasons e-ink screens hold so much potential is their low power requirements and long runtimes. Wove’s multi-touch display measures in at 1040 pixels by 200 pixels, and it can feature a customizable panel of applications that update constantly in the background, without requiring user interaction or extraneous battery usage. Related:  Eyecatcher, the e-ink wearable, really is pretty eye-catching
Wove’s operating system is a pared-down version of the Android OS, and Polyera has already made the platform available to developers so that third parties can begin designing proprietary applications for the device. In addition to their work with more established app companies which will hopefully deliver familiar products for the Wove OS, Polyera’s prototype beta testing program is open to experienced programmers and developers who will be able to look under the proverbial hood and build the Wove experience from the ground up. Polyera’s intention is for Wove to not only be a complete and engaging tool for more tech savvy users, but also a fun wearable for customers who might be more interested in the basic functionality of Wove’s flexible e-ink screen. Eventually, Wove is planning to integrate with fitness tracking programs and smartphone apps using native monitors that detect basic motions and count steps from within Wove itself. Prototypes for the beta testing program will ship in mid-2016, so it may still be months before standard consumers can get their hands on a Wove wearable of their own. Polyera is already anticipating prices, of course, and even though the company hasn’t released any official figures, it’s promising that when Wove does become publicly available, the device will still “cost less than the least expensive Apple Watch”, according to a Tech Crunch interview. That means Wove will touch on all the most important concerns when it comes to new consumer electronics: a pioneering technology offering, an affordable price tag, and battery life to outlast any iOS 9 mobile device. Get our Top Stories delivered to your inbox:

Wove brings back the ’90s slap bracelet with a flexible E-Ink twist

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Wove's New Flexible Touch Display
Take your iPad, turn it into a slap bracelet and you’ve got Wove, the first computer that can roll up and wrap around your wrist. Wove is the first product from flexible electronics company Polyera. It functions a lot like a smartwatch, but with the added ability to curve and bend. It’s also one of the first bendable touchscreen displays with a kind of technology that, if it catches on in the market, could open up new ways to make electronics that can flex like paper without damaging the display. Phil Inagaki co-founded Polyera about 10 years ago, but came up with the Wove about two and a half years ago. The band is made possible by Polyera’s patented digital fabric technology, a proprietary flexible electronics platform the company has been using to develop flexible transistors and displays since the company’s beginnings. Owners can program which applications and information shows up on the device and can read notifications day or night with a 1040 pixel by 200 pixel, multi-touch screen display that uses E-ink technology similar to Kindle. That means owners of the Wove can use and run several applications on the band’s display at the same time. We’re trying to open up a very different kind of platform around low-power, persistent, large display on the body. — Phil Inagaki, Polyera
The Wove operating system, Wove OS, connects to your smartphone over Bluetooth and is based on Android’s operating system. Polyera opened up Wove OS to allow developers to begin creating applications for the device before the first prototype hits the market this December. However, the first edition is slated to go out to consumers in mid-2016, according to Inagaki. Polyera is also working with some bigger application makers to develop apps on the Wove OS platform. “We’re trying to open up a very different kind of platform around low-power, persistent, large display on the body,” Inagaki told TechCrunch in an on-camera interview about Wove. Polyera has yet to set the price for this band, but we’re told the cost will be below the least-expensive Apple Watch option. The world’s first bendable wearable is definitely something you have to see with your own eyes. I interviewed Inagaki and got a chance to see how it works for myself and make a video to show you what Wove can do. So stop reading about it and click on the video above to check it out for yourself. 0

Meet Wove, An E-Ink Touchscreen Computer That Wraps Around Your Arm

Chips By Lee Mathews Oct. 7, 2015 10:31 am
The bendy band you’re looking at may just be a render, but make no mistake. There’s a prototype to match, and you should be able to buy one of your very own in 2016. This is the Wove Band , a new wearable currently being developed by a company called Polyera. They’ve been working on flexible display products for years, and they’re just about ready to sell you one you can slap on your wrist. The Band measures 3cm wide and is just under 16cm long. Its “backbone” is a series of hinged links, which allow it to wrap around the wearer’s wrist. That’s no problem for the Wove Band’s multitouch display, either. It’s made with Polyera’s Digital Fabric, a silicon substitute that lets its always-on E Ink screen bend over and over without breaking. While you might be tempted to do it, Polyera doesn’t want you calling the Wove Band a smartwatch. Their desire might have more to do with trying to distance themselves from the negative perceptions people sometimes have about smartwatches than it does trying to carve out a separate niche for a device that’s ultimately very similar to, say, the Pebble. Yes, the display is larger — a whopping 1040 x 200 pixels compared to 144 x 168 on the original Pebble — but the Wove Band is still a wrist-worn display with an integrated processor and OS that are designed to run apps, display notifications, and, yes, show you what time it is. The Wove Band is powered by a dual-core 1GHz Freescale processor. Polyera has also crammed in 4GB of internal storage, and 512MB of RAM. Running atop that hardware is a heavily-modified version of Android. That provides a familiar foundation for developers, which should make Wove Band a more desirable target for their apps. They’re pitching the Wove Band at designers, too, which is another way they hope it’ll stand out in the crowded wearables market. The always-on display lets the Band function as an adaptable fashion accessory that its wearers can tweak whenever they like. Another cool Wove feature is that it’s also designed to be useful even when you’re not wearing it. Polyera says that it “transforms” into an “ambient display[…]that has a natural presence.” It can show you the current weather, show the latest headlines, and even remind you of a few tasks that you need to complete. Whether that’s enough to win over consumers… we’ll have to wait and see. They’ll be in tough against the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and Pebble who all have a significant head start.

Wove Band melds Android with a flexible E Ink display

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