The start-up of the Istituito Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) FLEEP Technologies, a little less than a year after being founded, closes a seed investment of 800 thousand euros to bring its "printed electronics" technology to the market, to print integrated circuits, the components at the basis of computing capacity and automatic control, as well as essential elements for the digitization of information. The startup, thanks to the economic support of Pariter Partners Syndicate, the members of Italian Angels for Growth (IAG) and Club degli Investitori, together with the Cogliati Family, will develop intelligent, flexible and sustainable electronic systems for the packaging and biomedical industry that can reach the market within 3 years.
The company was founded in mid 2019 by the IIT research group "Printed and Molecular Electronics" composed, among others, by young researchers Giorgio Dell'Erba and Paolo Colpani and led by Mario Caironi within the Center for Nano Science and Techology (CNST) of IIT in Milan, with the intent to industrialize an innovative manufacturing process of printed electronics with reduced environmental impact.
The technology developed by FLEEP Technologies, in fact, allows to realize an electronics based not on silicon but on biocompatible and recyclable carbon-based polymers. In this way it is possible to have flexible electronic circuits adaptable to any surface, produced through traditional printing techniques, such as rotogravure, screen printing or inkjet printing, on different materials such as plastic, paper, fabrics, etc..
FLEEP Technologies represents one of the few realities in the world able to realize intelligent micro and nano-electronic circuits completely printed on different materials, paving the way for the realization of entire flexible systems.
"The closing of this round is a success for us and will allow us to improve the technology, bringing it to very high levels of performance and solidity, with a view to its subsequent development on an industrial scale. What we bring with us from this fundraising is the awareness that even in Italy there are investors who are attentive to emerging technologies, even if far from commercialization, who want to invest and take risks together with the founding team by focusing on value co-creation" - says Giorgio Dell'Erba, co-founder and CEO of FLEEP Technologies.
"Even at this time of market crisis, IAG's angels do not stop supporting the Italian economy to promote recovery through innovation. FLEEP Technologies immediately attracted great attention among IAG members, for the idea but even more so for the quality and the caliber of the team. Interest that has grown and consolidated during the various phases of the negotiations. The investment in FLEEP Technologies attests to the importance of opportunities in IAG's leading innovation sectors. IAG, on the other hand, is also confirmed as the ideal partner for these Deep-Tech start-ups that can count on the widest wealth of experience and expertise accumulated and shared by the members and on constant accompaniment throughout the duration of the investment" - says Alessandro Brighenti, IAG partner and Champion of the investment in Fleep.
"FLEEP Technologies is one of the most innovative players in the field of Printed Electronics: its technology allows to enable the realization of distributed electronics for IoT through high volume printing techniques not possible until now. There are less than five similar developments in the world, which highlights the worldwide excellence of IIT - says Marco Salvadori who represents the angels of Club degli Investitori in this investment - "With the investment, and with the network of resources and skills of the Club and the other co-investors, we want to support FLEEP Technologies in the development of the production process and in the testing of the first fully printed sensors and intelligent systems; from then on we will open different options for the technological and economic success of Fleep Technologies worldwide".
"Today's result comes from far away: from the great work done by the FLEEP team, from the accompaniment and support in the field of technology transfer of the Istituito Italiano di Tecnologia and the participation in the Pariter ScienceLAB program. The specific attention of Pariter Partners to Deep-Tech investment opportunities and the work done with the team has allowed to join the forces of the best early stage investors in Italy today who strongly believe that the incredible quality of Italian research must be brought to the market to generate solutions with a global impact" - says Pariter Partners that since the end of 2018 has followed the FLEEP team within its ScienceLAB investment program.
"We are satisfied with the result of this operation and have supported a group of young researchers to launch their own entrepreneurial challenge" says Matteo Bonfanti, Director of Technology Transfer at IIT - "We have followed the project from the very first steps and see it grow to become a reality that gathers such an important group of investors, in such a challenging sector, is the demonstration of the value of the work done".