LONDON — Plastic Logic Ltd., a developer of plastic electronics for flexible display backplanes and sensors, has closed a round of private funding at $8 million, the company said on Tuesday (Jan. 25).

Siemens Venture Capital GmbH and Nanotech Partners — an international nanotechnology fund established principally by Mitsubishi Corp. — have joined the company's existing investors to provide funds to enable further expansion.

Plastic Logic entered into a joint development agreement with mobile phone maker Siemens Communications, to develop flexible displays for Siemens mobile devices, that was announced in Dec. 2004.

The company is expanding a mini-fab facility and installing a prototype line for 350-mm by 350mm substrates that is set to be used in conjunction with device-makers to demonstrate advanced product prototypes using its technology.

Participants in a previous venture round, disclosed Nov. 2002 included Bank of America Capital Partners (Chicago), Yasuda Enterprise Development Company (Tokyo), St John's College (Cambridge, UK) and Steve Kahng (Palo Alto, California, USA), who joined Plastic Logic's initial first round investors: Amadeus Capital Partners (London & Cambridge, UK) and PolyTechnos Venture-Partners (Munich, Germany). Cambridge University, Dow Chemical, Seiko Epson and Cambridge Display Technology were described as "strategic investors" in the company, at that time. The two closings of that round netted about $13.7 million.

"Plastic Logic has made impressive progress over the last few years in converting exceptional science into outstanding technology. It is an incredibly innovative company and is enabling electronics to be put into places where silicon can't go. We are excited to be joining the team," said Teruyuki Nakazawa from Nanotech Partners.

Plastic Logic was included in both the first and second iterations of Silicon Strategies' 60 Emerging Startups list.