

1 company, $1 billion+ of VC investment, 0 products, 0 revenue - marklittlewood
http://thebln.com/2011/01/700-million-investment-turns-uk-invention-into-plasticski-logicski/

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pclark
As far as I am aware Plastic Logic was never a product company, they were a
technology company.

They had to produce the Que because no partners believed the technology worked
at scale - they wanted to see an actual product created. This in itself was a
huge culture shock for a technology company to have to suddenly sweat product
details.

And so far the technology hasn't worked in a scalable manner, but this is a
matter of time and capital.

eReaders were an interesting choice, when Plastic Logic decided on this the
iPad was non-existent and the only eReaders were crappy Sony ones, by the time
they managed to launch it the market was far more mature and expectations of
what a product had to do to be good had sky rocketed.

You're probably wondering what other products their plastic technology can be
used in, it is very diverse in reality - eventually plastic logic will have
electronic paper for the same price as regular paper. Imagine if medicine
labels updated on the fly with reminders, recommendations and guidelines.
Posters on the wall changed over the air rather than needing to be reprinted,
etc etc. Futuristic stuff _in theory_.

It is very easy to criticise a a company for raising so much capital and never
launching anything - but what they are doing is ridiculously futuristic -
literal hard technology that'll impact every persons life in the long run.

I wonder if the early investors like Hermann Hauser and Amadeus have made any
money from this yet.

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marklittlewood
You could argue that it was a technology company that had to become a product
company and got very distracted in the process. From the evidence that we have
so far OEMs were probably right to hold off to ensure that electronics could
be produced at scale. This seems to have been a key issue for them in
launching the Que where the company had to focus on manufacturing but also
running a number of product driven startups as per my comment.

I would never criticise a company for raising too much money though I would be
inclined to query the wisdom of an early stage investor who thought that they
would get a return.

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pclark
I think you are entirely correct, I think the Que could simply be described as
a product desperately in search of a problem to solve.

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myth_drannon
Rusnano - is state owned Russian corporation headed by a close friend of Putin
and an oligarch Anatoly Chubais. This is basically a shell company created to
steal taxpayers money. Everyone knows it and there is lots of jokes about
these "nano technologies". So be sure that out of 1 billion ,big chunk of it
was in kickbacks to company's execs and middle managers.

~~~
marklittlewood
This is less about kick backs, more about the phenomenal cost of setting up
new fabs.

Creating a new manufacturing industry is very expensive.

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VladRussian
>Creating a new manufacturing industry is very expensive.

:)))

man, you just don't get how Russian nanotechnology business works. It uses
completely different technological process. Let me explain step-by-step:

step 1: i invest into your venture 1B of government money i manage

step 2: you transfer back to my personal Switzerland account (not to my
government fund) 500M.

Repeat until there is government money available.

~~~
marklittlewood
Thank you for the clarification. Sounds a bit like being a VC in a large fund.

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rexreed
Sorry if I ask a stupid question -- what the heck are plastic electronics? The
article doesn't do much to explain what that means... Some specifics and
examples would help a lot. Also, you mention iPad as a competitor, but it's
not clear how and why.

~~~
ojbyrne
"polymer transistors and electronics"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_Logic>

~~~
rexreed
If so, how does this make the iPad a competitor?

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Charuru
They were making an iPad like product and have announced it way before the
iPad was announced. But now that looks sort of sunk. As a consumer product it
doesn't look like they'll be able to pull it off. But their technology seems
fantastic and can make them a successful company lower on the supply chain.

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sasvari
just for clarification: their production plant is in _Dresden_ [1], not in
_Munich_.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Saxony>

~~~
marklittlewood
You got me banged to rights! Apologies, I was looking into flying to Munich
for the weekend just before I wrote this. Munich on my brain!

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americandesi333
If I am not mistaken, Plastic Logic is licensing their technology for the
Barnes and Nobles Nook, right? If thats the case, then having an end product
such as 'Que' doesn't seem as profitable as making money on just licensing the
IP.

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marklittlewood
69 points! Perfect score.

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tjmaxal
it's companies like this that make it that much harder for the rest of us to
raise capital. Not that I know a lot of VCs, but the ones I do know all
require a working business model before investing. How were they planning on
making money on this?

~~~
pclark
Their business model is straight forward, if they can pull their technology
off they have just created an entire industry that could spawn a whole new
generation of electronics companies.

The difficulty is making the technology work, and you're kidding yourself if
you think investors in this kind of company look at deals any smaller than the
kinds of Plastic Logic bets.

