THE ROANOKE REGION OF VIRGINIA

PixelOptics, a small Roanoke County-based technology company, provided additional evidence this weekend that the growing company could be moving toward a fortunate future.
PixelOptics announced that the Panasonic Venture Group has become an apparently enthusiastic investor and shareholder. PVG is the venture capital arm of global electronics giant Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., better known as Panasonic. The investment amount was not disclosed.
PixelOptics executives, including optometrist, inventor and entrepreneur Ron Blum, suggest that the company's successful launch of high-tech lenses for vision correction could benefit the region's economy.
To date, most of the product development information shared cautiously by PixelOptics has focused on its electro-active lens -- a microprocessor equipped lens designed to focus automatically on objects near, far and in-between. Blum said a different lens will be introduced in early October at the International Vision Expo West in Las Vegas.
He said PixelOptics wants to make a big splash by first introducing the lens to industry insiders at the event. The product PixelOptics will tout is a fixed-focus, composite lens, said Steve Holt, the company's chief financial officer.
Neither he nor Blum would provide additional details.
According to PVG, based in California's Silicon Valley, it serves "as a gateway for companies to partner with Panasonic on technology and product development." The group said it invests in companies that present a "strategic competitive advantage to Panasonic."
Blum has said the lenses being developed by PixelOptics could have a profound impact on the optical industry. The company's lenses are designed to treat presbyopia, a condition that begins to affect the vision of many middle-aged people and is generally corrected now with bifocals or progressive addition lenses.
Holt said PVG's investment does not necessarily mean Panasonic will license or buy the small company's lens technologies.
"It's a good sign that they're interested in the product but I wouldn't read too much more into that," Holt said.
Patrick Suel of PVG said he discovered PixelOptics during a discussion with a friend. One discussion led to another, he said.
He said the group believes PixelOptics' electro-active lenses could spur the first real revolution in spectacle lenses since 1784, when Benjamin Franklin is said to have invented bifocals.
Brad McManus, PVG's director of investments, said the group also was impressed by the management team PixelOptics has recruited to Roanoke, a team that includes high-level veterans from optical lens companies such as Essilor.
Blum, the company's chairman, president and chief executive officer, said the recruitment to Roanoke of these executives has helped the local economy. PixelOptics recently moved from cramped offices on Hershberger Road to a much larger space in the Valleypointe business park in Roanoke County. It has about 30 employees.
"I believe PixelOptics has already made a positive contribution to the Roanoke Valley by way of new jobs, bringing new talent and families to the valley and exposing others from outside the valley to the Roanoke Valley," Blum said in an e-mail.
"Admittedly, the more successful PixelOptics becomes the more it will impact the valley," he added. "I have learned that with a young start-up company momentum and credibility are everything. Having a global giant like Panasonic invest in PixelOptics provides both."
Cory Donovan, executive director for the NewVa Corridor Technology Council, said that Panasonic's investment in PixelOptics provides "another example of how the region is now appearing on the radar screen as a place that is home to innovative, successful technology companies."
Blum has a track record of success in the spectacle lens industry. In 1997, he sold his company, Innotech, and its lens technology to Johnson & Johnson for $135 million.
Blum's innovations played a role in the Definity eyeglass lens later sold by J&J. Local officials celebrated when the Fortune 500 company announced it would manufacture the lens in Roanoke. However, in 2005, J&J announced it had sold the lens to competitor Essilor, which moved production out of Roanoke.
In 1999, Blum founded the Egg Factory, an innovation-focused, privately held company. In 2005, PixelOptics spun off from eVision, a spinoff of the Egg Factory.
On the net: www.pixeloptics.com and www.vcpanasonic.com.