Spun off from Eveready in 2003, Blue Spark Technologies finally finds itself on the cusp of a new market for printed battery technology.
The idea is a battery that is thin, flexible and produced using familiar printing and production methods.
The technology was initially pursued by Eveready's Energizer group, whose research labs were, like Blue Spark, located in Westlake. When the industry reshuffled its priorities in 2002-2003, Blue Spark was spun off, backed by venture capital from Cleveland-based Early Stage Partners.
Today, the company is focused on a battery that will power a new breed of radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip -- chips that are affixed to an item and tracked using a reader.
In fact, a Finnish company with an automatic vehicle identification system is close to integrating Blue Spark's technology, and CEO Gary Johnson says that means the company could soon start reaping revenues.
"They could be used for toll collection . . . it could be used to integrate the vehicle registration into the tag, and so forth," says Johnson.
In September, Blue Spark and U.K.-based Novalia, which designs printed electronics products, announced a marketing agreement to create and launch new kinds of interactive printed media. The idea is to make items like singing greeting cards more interactive with the consumer and to make them cheaper to produce at high volumes.
Matt Ream, Blue Spark's vice president of marketing, says "the most exciting thing is we're on the cusp of something big, some pretty big market growth."
The company completed series A financing in 2007, raising $6.2 million in a round led by SunBridge Partners; it closed a $1.5-million series B round last year. It currently has eight full-time and five part-time employees.
Sources: Gary Johnson and Matt Ream, Blue Spark
Writer: Gene Monteith