Evonik Venture Capital Invests in FRX Polymers

With a $2.5 million cash injection, the venture capital fund of Germany's Evonik has led a $12 million series C financing round in U.S.-based FRX Polymers. Under the Nofia trademark, the company headquartered at Chelmsford, Massachusetts, manufactures and markets what it says is an environmentally friendly family of non-halogenated flame retardant plastics and oligomers based on polyphosphonate.

Evonik's funds injection coincided with the opening of FRX's first industrial-scale flame retardant polymer plant at Antwerp, Belgium. The U.S. company already operates two pilot plants at Chelmsford and another in Switzerland. Other investors in the series C round include Capricorn Venture Partners, DB Masdar, SAM Private Equity, BASF Venture Capital, Israel Cleantech Ventures, and a western Canadian syndicate. In its last round of fundraising,Series B, in March 2012, FRX took in $26.7 million.

The FRX polymers, designed to replace brominated FR systems, are used in a wide variety of electronics, building & construction, fiber, and transportation applications. The Nofia polyphosphonates have little impact on the inherent mechanical properties of the host resin, according to the company's CEO, Marc Lebel.