Tuesday, June 28, 2011

MC10 taps Braemar to lead new $12.5M Series B round

By Rodney H. Brown

Cambridge flexible electronics company MC10 Inc. has raised $12.5 million in a Series B round that brings in new investor Braemar Energy Ventures as the lead investor. Previous backers North Bridge Venture Partners, Osage University Partners and Terawatt Ventures all joined in the new round as well, according to a release from MC10.

The new funds will be used to speed up development of the company’s technology, which allows for the creation of silicon for circuity that can be stretched, bent and twisted into a series of shapes beyond the traditional flat circuit board. In addition, the new funds should allow MC10 to bring its first products to market, officials said in the release.

With an initial Series A round that was bumped up to $6 million in July of last year, MC10 has now raised at least $18.5 million from institutional investors. The company was co-founded by John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and George Whitesides of Harvard University. In addition to the venture funding, MC10 has taken in “significant funding” from the Navy and ARPA-E.

According to the release, MC10 is “currently developing products for the sports, military and biomedical fields and has initial partners including Reebok and Massachusetts General Hospital.” In May of 2010, it was reported that MC10 was working with Cambridge nonprofit Diagnostics for All on simple, low-cost, point-of-care diagnostics for use in emerging countries.

Earlier this month, Rogers was named the 2011 winner of the Lemelson-MIT Prize, taking home the $500,000 award in part because his research has helped create products and companies across disciplines in areas like health, fiber optics, semiconductor manufacturing and solar power.