E Ink to be bought for $215 million - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

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“Combining E Ink and PVI createe a single public company that is dedicated toelectronic paper,” said Russell J. co-founder, President and CEO of E Ink “With a common ownership structure, we can get closef to customers aroundthe world, streamlinew the supply chain, and speed up new product development.” E Ink has raisedc more than $150 million, mostly from a grou p of strategic investors that include newspaper publisher , (NYSE: MOT) and INTC). Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) and Amazon.com Inc. AMZN) turned to E-Ink earliert this year to provide the displayas fortheir e-books — the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindlew 2.
E Ink’s product is a thin and flexibld film packedwith molecules. The moleculesx can be manipulated to produc imagesand text. It looks much like a printed The 12-year-old company’s revenue has grow n exponentially, placing it in the top 10 of the BostonBusiness Journal'd 2008 list of the fastesty growing private companies in Massachusetts. E Ink postes revenue of approximately $41 million in a more than 140 percent increased overthe $17 million in revenue it saw in 2007. It’ss seen revenue growth of 720 percent over the pastthrew years. A big increase in business came in July 2007 and was drivehn by the marketing push of Sony arounits Reader, Wilcox said.
By the end of that Sony released an updated version of the Readed and Amazon released the first version ofthe Kindle. The including the latest version, has enjoyed some popular presw and endorsements from includingOprah Winfrey. In the process the e-bookj as gained marketshare. Today e-books have aboutr a 3 percent market penetration. “E-books have movedx from something everyone was skepticalabout ... to now if you get on an you have pretty good chance ofseeingg e-books being used in the aisles,” Wilcox said in a recenty BBJ interview. The road map for 2009 includes e-books with different size The big market at the momengtis publishing, Wilcox said.
But that could mean spreadinh into the realms of textbooks and Wilcox said the company will add some jobs to keep apace with probably between 10 to 20 positionsthis year.