Avery Dennison, the $6 billion turnover California packaging and location tech giant, has invested in an £18 million funding round for Cambridge UK flexible electronics business PragmatIC.

Avery Dennison is a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Pasadena with leading global positions in labelling and packaging materials as well as radio frequency identification (RFID).

The US company joins existing shareholders Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC) and Cambridge technology giant ARM, who also participated in the round.

The investment is expected to accelerate the mass deployment of intelligent packaging, with Avery Dennison leveraging the potential of PragmatIC’s flexible integrated circuits (flexICs) in its inlays portfolio.

Scott White, PragmatIC’s CEO, who six months ago collected a Business Weekly award for the technology, said: “Avery Dennison works with more than 10,000 converters, brand owners and retailers worldwide, making them an ideal supply chain partner to deliver solutions based on our unique technology.

“We appreciate the confidence in our business reflected by this investment from Avery Dennison, as well as continued strong backing from CIC and ARM.

“The funding provides full support for our next stage of evolution, moving from pilot scale production to enable volume manufacturing with the FlexLogIC equipment.”

Avery Dennison’s Francisco Melo said the company was excited about the collaboration which, he said, “presents a promising opportunity to build on our high volume RFID inlay manufacturing capabilities.

“With PragmatIC’s technology, there is the potential to extend the use of unique item-level digital identities to improve consumer experiences in a number of new segments, such as fast-moving consumer goods.”

The funding round supports PragmatIC’s development and commercialisation of its FlexLogIC fab-in-a-box equipment. This modular system facilitates fully automated, high throughput production of flexICs and is designed to fit naturally into the supply chain for a wide variety of intelligent packaging solutions.

Victor Christou, CEO of Cambridge Innovation Capital, said: “This funding allows PragmatIC to deliver into the market a tool for producing flexible integrated circuits at an unprecedentedly low unit price point. We believe this is an important step forward to commercially affordable smart packaging.”

PragmatIC’s ultra low cost flexible electronics are said to enable the potential for trillions of smart objects that can sense and communicate with their environment. 
Its technology platform enables integrated circuits thinner than a human hair that can be easily embedded in any surface, introducing interactivity into a wide range of everyday items.

At a fraction of the price of conventional silicon chips, PragmatIC’s products enable a vast range of new applications: from intelligent packaging of fast-moving consumer goods, to wireless traceability of documents for security and identification.

The company’s growing customer base includes large multi-national customers across a number of sectors, including consumer goods, packaging, security printing and mainstream electronics.