Tekes grants 1,5 million Euros loan for technology development

On 25 June, at the annual shareholders meeting of Enfucell Oy, the company set up to print manganese dioxide zinc batteries, Mr. Harri Ollila, M Sc. (Eng.), MBA, was appointed as a new member of the board. In addition to Mr. Ollila, the board members are Dr. Jussi Suomela and Professor Aarne Halme, both founders of Enfucell, and Mr. Antti Kivimaa M.Sc. (Eng.), B.Sc (Econ.), Executive VP of Ruukki Group Plc, who joined the board in 2007.

 

Since 2007 Mr. Ollila has been a partner of VNT Management. Earlier Harri worked at Elcoteq Plc, a leading electronics manufacturing services company in the communications technology field, as Senior Vice President, European Operations and Senior VP, Corporate Relations 2002-2007. In 1983-2002 Harri served ABB in various sales, supply chain and business line management positions.

 

In addition to Varma Pension Insurance Company's investment of 2 million euros in May, TEKES The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, on 27 June granted Enfucell a 1,5 million euros loan for development of the SoftBattery™ technology.

 

"Enfucell is an interesting company in its early stage of development. Even though it is not in our core strategic focus yet, Varma's investment gives Enfucell a great deal of resources to develop an interesting technology from the VNTM funds' point of view", says Mr. Ollila.

 

"We believe Harri brings vast industrial and international business expertise to Enfucell, and thus strengthens the board's ability to tackle the challenges of growth. With funding from Varma and Tekes we are now able to focus on business development with full steam", says Dr. Jussi Suomela, Chairman of the Board of Enfucell.

 

 

Enfucell Oy is an Espoo, Finland based technology company with its roots in the Helsinki University of Technology. The company has developed SoftBattery™, a thin, flexible 1.5 volt environmentally friendly power source optimally utilized in disposable and short lifetime products.

 

Potential SoftBattery™ applications include e.g. RFID (radio frequency identification tags and sensors), intelligent packaging, cosmetic and pharmaceutical products.

 

Enfucell has received numerous international awards for the development of the SoftBattery. In January 2007, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland named Enfucell one of the world's forty-seven leading technology pioneers. The American high technology publication, Red Herring, named Enfucell one of the promising European technology companies. In March 2007, the developer of the SoftBattery™, Dr. Xia-Chang Zhang, was selected in Beijing as one of the ten most influential foreign Chinese by China's largest media companies.

 

Enfucell was founded in 2002 and employs ca. twenty people, including a presence in the United States, and it is owned by its founders, private investors, Veraventure Oy, a Finnish governmental venture fund, and Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Co., the largest private sector pension insurance company in Finland.

 

In addition to its owners, Enfucell has been financially supported by Tekes, The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation.