Novares Venture Capital has announced it will invest €2.5 million now and another €2.5 million scheduled for 2019, providing that market feedback on the innovation remains positive. This will - according to the announcement - give Novares a "significant" equity stake in FlexEnable.
In February this year, Novares created Novares Venture Capital, managed by the Group, to support new businesses and start-ups with technical expertise in fields adding value to Novares’ products, such as
The investment is the first step in an exciting partnership to develop innovative glass-free flexible electronic displays and sensors or "smart surfaces" for automotive applications.
It will combine Novares' expertise in designing and manufacturing automotive parts with FlexEnable's bendable, wrappable, glass-free plastic electronics technology.
The flexibility provided by this technology, together with Novares' integrator know-how, can give automotive designers a much larger variety of shapes to work with, and replace the present flat screens that are not ideally suited to the current car interiors.
Novares sees many future applications of the technology for example in the company's "Flex View" innovation (exterior revolving mirrors and camera with an integrated flexible screen for rear view) this has been integrated on Nova Car #1 and highlights the potential of flexible and conformable displays.
Incorporating flexible screens on interior parts manufactured by Novares is a next step in this development, aiming to satisfy the creativity of automotive designers, assist drivers and improve overall passenger experience.
In order to bring new innovations quickly to market for the benefit of its customers, Novares Venture Capital will seek to further invest in technological innovators to gain access to the latest technologies and influence the direction of development into areas of interest for car manufacturers.
In 2017, to speed up its Research and Development projects, Novares Group also signed a multi-year framework agreement for collaboration with public research organisation CEA (Atomic Energy Commission) to industrialise and commercialise existing and new technologies for future connected, autonomous, electric and hybrid vehicles.
"Open to current or future partners and co-innovators, such as Actronika and Quad, the new fund will reinforce the Group’s strategy, in terms of strategic mergers and acquisitions (M&A) combined with strategic research and development (R&D) activities. This will support Novares' new solutions for clean, light, connected and autonomous cars that are user-friendly, incorporating HMIs (Human Machine Interfaces) with an improved passenger experience."
Pierre Boulet, Novares CEO
"We are delighted to be supported by Novares who have taken a leadership position in bringing smart surfaces to the automotive supply chain. With the automotive display market valued at $22bn by 2022, this investment is a further validation of FlexEnable’s glass-free display technology and its potential to serve the growing demand for low-cost, high-reliability, conformable and shapeable displays to meet the evolving needs of the automotive HMI."
Chuck Milligan, CEO of FlexEnable