Company Profile: Agile Materials

July 29, 2002

With VC interest in startups still at an all-time low, Agile Materials has had to prove itself the way companies used to, before hype, inflated earnings and other dangerous bubbles clouded business strategies--by offering a unique product that will benefit customers and investors alike.

A UCSB spin-off founded in 1999 by Professor Robert York and Dr. Chris Elsass, Agile Materials was the result of York's thin film ferroelectrics research that he conducted at the University, which utilized Barium Strontium Titanate (BST) material. The company was initially funded through DARPA and SBIR grants during its research and development phase. Not until February of this year did Agile begin to accept funding from the private sector, a $700K bridge from NextGen Partners LLC out of Santa Barbara (the company expects to be closing its Series A funding for approximately $6M probably sometime next month). Agile's success in being able to attract venture capital in an era when almost no VCs take an interest in young companies is a testament to the viability of its product.

"It's a difficult time to raise money, but we've been very fortunate that every one who has spoken with us, both customers and investors, have expressed a lot of interest," says the company's CEO, Chuck Bischof, who joined Agile Materials in 2001. "We've discovered some smart investors out there who recognize that this is an attractive investment opportunity, and we now believe we have our funding syndicate in place to successfully grow the company. So things look good in that respect."

By using BST, Agile's material has unique characteristics that can be electrically tuned to make voltage-controlled RF components. Currently the only company to demonstrate working RF products using thin-film BST, the applications for Agile's technology is mainly cell phones and other wireless handheld devices. The main selling point of the technology--to both end users as well as wireless clients--is that it inherently lowers manufacturing costs (less parts to assemble), and reduces size and weight, the golden advantage in the wireless device market where companies compete with thinner, lighter products. Agile's main competition is from existing technologies such as compound semiconductor devices, and to a lesser extent the emerging MEMS technologies. In some applications other technologies have some performance advantages, but in most cases the lower cost of Agile's technology tends to make it a more attractive solution for the end-user and the manufacturer.

"We thought that we would have a difficult time in the wireless communications industry, initially anticipating an 18 month lead time getting in the door at the most desirable customers," says Bischof. "But in fact it has moved more quickly than we anticipated. With the recent addition of Tom Goodwin as our VP of Business Development, we've been very successful in developing the marketing side of the business. We've had a lot of occasions where people have actually approached the company about the technology and its applications. Although it is a new technology, BST has been around a long time, so market acceptance may be a bit easier than for some other types of new technology. I think the technology speaks for itself, and the engineers/customers understand what we're doing. They're saying that this is really a great technology. It's now up to us to prove that we can deliver consistently good product."

by Wendy Hall
Larta Staff Writer

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