E-paper

E Ink invests in US street-kiosk firm Soofa to sell big color signs

The stake comes three months after E Ink's chairman said its 32-inch signs were priced high and hadn't drawn customers as expected.

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Cbot Crew

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A Soofa solar e-paper kiosk with a color display showing neighborhood updates, standing on a city sidewalk as a pedestrian passes.
A Soofa kiosk with a 75-inch E Ink Kaleido Outdoor color display showing neighborhood updates. Photo: E Ink

E Ink (元太科技), a maker of e-paper display panels and materials based in Hsinchu, Taiwan, has invested in Soofa, a US company that runs solar-powered e-paper kiosks on city sidewalks. The deal aims to win adoption of E Ink's 75-inch Kaleido Outdoor color boards for community messages and street advertising, E Ink said on Nov. 9.

It is E Ink's first investment in a company offering a complete digital signage system, the company said in its release. E Ink didn't disclose the amount. Neither company said how many of the 75-inch boards Soofa will put up, where or when.

Soofa, founded in 2014 and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, works with more than 60 US cities, including Boston, Atlanta and Los Angeles, according to E Ink. Its kiosks need no grid connection, and a crew of two installs them. Soofa says a sign can be put up or moved in 30 minutes. The two companies began working together more than a decade ago on E Ink's black-and-white displays, E Ink said. In 2025, Soofa said in a press release reported by Kiosk Marketplace that it would launch a 75-inch full-color solar street kiosk in the third quarter of that year, priced from US$29,900 installed.

Price has been a hurdle for some of E Ink's signs, by its own account: at an Aug. 13 investor conference, chairman Johnson Lee (李政昊) said its 32-inch e-paper signs were priced high and hadn't drawn customers as expected, while mid-size 8- to 15-inch signs saw better demand, TechNews reported.

E Ink is also lining up a site for large-panel production. Its board approved on Nov. 6 buying an existing plant and its land in the Guanyin industrial park in Taoyuan, Taiwan, which E Ink said would suit large e-paper production lines. The seller’s board must still approve the deal. E Ink has said mass production of its 55-inch outdoor color e-paper will start in March 2027, as reported here. Separately, E Ink said on June 1 that 75-inch color e-paper advertising boards using its displays had been installed at Taoyuan International Airport.

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Editor: Ian Lamont

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