ORFID Corporation, a UCLA spin-out, Receives Initial Funding from Precision Dynamics Corporation and Convergent Ventures
PASADENA, CA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--February 18, 2004--ORFID Corporation, a company developing an entirely
new class of organic electronics based on conductive polymers, announced today that it has received
initial funding from Precision Dynamics Corporation, of San Fernando, California, and Convergent Ventures,
a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm. The terms of the funding were not disclosed.
ORFID is based on pioneering, multi-disciplinary research, issued patents, new intellectual property,
engineering advancements and actual products emerging from two important sources: The laboratory of Dr.
Yang Yang, Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of California,
Los Angeles (UCLA) and Precision Dynamics, a leading manufacturer and distributor of personal
identification management products, including wearable RFID (radio frequency identification) wristband
systems. Dr. Yang has served as a consultant to Precision Dynamics, which has sought to develop new
methods for producing its RFID identification products using flexible organic materials that can be
incorporated more effectively and economically into wearable RFID devices.
"I am enormously pleased to see the results of my team’s research at UCLA become the basis for a new
company in an important new field," said Dr. Yang, the scientific founder of ORFID, who has been at
UCLA since 1997. Prior to UCLA, Dr. Yang was a product development engineer at Uniax Corporation of
Santa Barbara, which was acquired by DuPont in March 2000. Dr. Yang also observe that "organic
electronics have the potential to replace silicon-based electronics in many existing applications,
and to enable the creation of new products that cannot be produced using conventional inorganic materials."
ORFID’s technology will enable manufacturing of new products such as electronic smart labels, flexible
displays, intelligent packaging, biosensors, and medical devices. The company's novel technology for
inkjet printing of conductive polymers has the potential to improve substantially the economics of the
electronics industry. ORFID’s inkjet printing technology will revolutionize manufacturing of electronics,
especially when product features such as flexibility, customizability, and low cost are highly important.
Dr. Walter W. Mosher, Jr., co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Precision Dynamics said, "As a
successful operating company with years of manufacturing expertise and well defined markets ranging
from healthcare to patron identification, we see ORFID as a wonderful opportunity to capitalize upon
the expertise we have established in-house, particularly in the rapidly growing field of RFID technology.
Our own work in the development of the Smart Band® RFID wristband system has led us to believe that the
potential to produce smart electronic devices on flexible substrates is virtually limitless. For this
reason, Precision Dynamics decided to join forces with Dr. Yang and Convergent Ventures to create ORFID,
a company dedicated to organic electronics."
ORFID will be lead initially by a management team composed of key executives from Convergent Ventures,
Precision Dynamics, and from the semiconductor and materials industries.
Dr. Jonathan Lasch, Managing Director at Convergent Ventures, will serve as the founding Chairman and
CEO of ORFID. Dr. Lasch, a materials scientist, has been a co-founder, early executive and/or advisor
to three previous companies based on polymer technology: Cyrano Sciences, Materia, and Calhoun Vision.
He was also a co-founder and CEO of Neurion Pharmaceuticals, a portfolio company of Convergent Ventures.
Prior to becoming a technology entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Dr. Lasch was Vice President of
Technology Development at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Earlier in his career,
he was a research chemist and corporate research manager at PPG Industries, a leading manufacturer of
paints, coatings, and resins.
"Some of the greatest new developments in science and technology have occurred at the interface between
different disciplines," said Dr. Lasch. "ORFID’s ability to integrate organic materials, RFID technology
and electronics is exactly the kind of opportunity I like, and exactly what many potential corporate
partners and investors are looking for."
Until ORFID establishes its combined headquarters and R&D facilities, the company will be
co-located with Convergent Ventures at 11766 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1420, Los Angeles, California,
90025. ORFID’s telephone number is 310-444-3241 and its web address
is www.orfid.com. Initial
inquiries about ORFID should be directed to Dr. Jonathan Lasch, Chairman and CEO, or Dr. David
Margolese, Vice President of Technology Development.
