Powering the next generation of indoor devices with LAYER®

Dracula Technologies was created in 2011 following a European project in collaboration with the CEA (Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives). Brice Cruchon, CEO of the startup, saw the potential and took charge of the project to develop it and bring it to market. After 6 years of research, development and innovation, LAYER® is revealed to the world thanks to a Hello Tomorrow (Energy Transition track) victory gathering more than 3500 international startups. 

LAYER® is an organic photovoltaic (OPV) technology by inkjet printing : 

• That harvests ambient light (natural or artificial) to power low consumption indoor devices.
• It’s adaptable and customizable : Free shape design and on demand electric features.
• It’s a greentech : No rare earths or heavy metals such as lead are used. Mainly carbon based material. (0,35 years energy payback time - 10,7 g C02-eq/kWH) 
• A Low Cost technology : Low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) due to a significant reduction of maintenance costs.

The startup launched a first round of financing in 2016 with an amount of 2 million with business angels for the installation of the pilot line designed to carry out the first proof of concepts in Valence, France. 

In 2020, the company raised a second round of financing of 2.4 million euros from two industrialists, MGI Digital and ISRA Cards. This round A is used to move to the pre-industrialisation stage, more specifically to increase the production of photovoltaic modules. Dracula Technologies' goal is to become the world's reference in organic photovoltaics by moving into the industrial phase to produce millions of modules by 2024. 

With the spread of the Internet-of-Things, new problems arise for the industrialists like battery limit, device lifetime, and cost of use related to the time and effort required for the implementation. LAYER® is efficient to answer these problems by securing a power source for IoT and RFID. 

Energy harvesting has the potential to solve these hardware issues, providing greater reliability and operational lifetime in wireless sensor networks. We rely on organic photovoltaic. Over the last decade, organic solar cells have become a promising technology for next-generation solar cells with properties such as lightweight, flexibility, design opportunity, or low environmental impact. The high efficiency in low-light conditions makes our OPV modules great candidates for indoor applications. 

Currently, the use of batteries to power these devices places significant constraints on this development (Maintenance problems, environmental footprint and development constraint) 

With LAYER® technology, we reduce by 4 times your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by reducing battery maintenance, by evolving the design of connected devices and by increasing product lifetimes. 

One of the great advantages of LAYER® technology is its manufacturing process. We use bio-based conductive inks, specifically carbon-based materials. In addition, inkjet printing allows us to drastically reduce the amount of material used (1g of material to produce 1 square meter of surface). Our objective is to increase the lifespan of connected objects (>10 years) while reducing their environmental impact.We are working every day to develop LAYER® to further reduce its environmental impact (currently estimated at 0.35 years energy payback time - 10.7 g C02-eq/kWH)

Dracula Technologies have two major industrial partners : MGI Digital and ISRA Cards 

Mgi Digital Technology is the world leader in digital finishing with several thousand industrial printing customers. Mgi Digital Technology is a French company created in 1982. It designs, manufactures and markets in France and internationally a complete and innovative range of digital presses. Since 2013, the Group has also taken a position in the promising market of Printed Electronics and Intelligent 3D Printing with the acquisition of the company CERADROP.

ISRA is an independent French company specialized in the design and manufacturing of personalized and secure cards and media mainly dedicated to retail, access control, identification and transportation. Around its products, ISRA offers a wide range of services such as printing, personalization, contact and contactless chip integration, card programming and routing operations (enveloping, shipping).

And the technology is part of the Solar Impulse Foundation's #1000 Solutions. 1000+ efficient and profitable solutions to protect the environment 

To address environmental challenges without compromising economic growth, Bertrand Piccard and the Solar Impulse Foundation have identified 1000+ clean and profitable solutions, and are now committed to going even further. By offering political and economic decision-makers a Guide to Solutions that can be implemented on a large scale, the Foundation will help them establish a roadmap for the adoption of much more ambitious energy and environmental programs and thus achieve their carbon neutrality objectives.

“Solutions exist that are logical more than just ecological, that can create jobs and generate profit while also reducing polluting emissions and preserving natural resources.” Bertrand Piccard

We are working with some manufacturers around the world to develop sustainable connected objects. 

Recently, we have announced a partnership with Renesas Electronics, and ANDtr to deliver a self-powering, battery-less IoT device capable for communicating through low-energy BLE, from two on board sensors.