Twenty-nine years after the Media Lab gave the world electronic ink, E Ink is backing a Lab-born startup that puts it on the street corner...no outlet required.

E Ink has announced a strategic partnership and investment in Soofa, bringing together two companies that both trace their origins to the MIT Media Lab. It's E Ink's first investment in a company providing a complete digital signage solution.

Our shared MIT Media Lab roots and longstanding collaboration make this investment especially meaningful. 

—Johnson Lee, chairman and CEO, E Ink

E Ink grew from research by Media Lab professor Joseph Jacobson and then-undergraduates JD Albert and Barrett Comiskey. It spun out in 1997 to commercialize electronic ink, the paper-like display technology that took off in e-readers. Soofa began in 2014 when Sandra Richter, of Changing Places, and Huiying Zhao, of Responsive Environments, teamed up, shaped by the Lab's demo and iterate culture. Early backing came from the Lab's own E14 Fund, which supports recent MIT graduates with stipends, mentoring, and introductions to investors. Their first prototype, a solar-powered, phone-charging bench, went into a Boston park in June 2014.

Since then, Soofa has moved from benches to signs and built relationships with more than 60 U.S. cities, including Boston, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. Its kiosks bring transit updates, local news, weather, and advertising to the places where people live, work, and gather.

The problem is simple: neighborhood information is scattered across sites and hard for residents to find. E Ink's displays stay readable in direct sunlight and use so little power that solar operation is practical, with no wired electrical infrastructure. A team of two can install a kiosk, with no special equipment.

The collaboration goes back more than a decade, to the first black-and-white screens. This next chapter puts color on the sidewalk, in screens big enough to read from across the street and tough enough for direct sun.

The deal also reflects how E Ink works. It has established investment funds to back companies building products on its technology. Lee said, "We are pleased to support Soofa's next stage of growth and help bring sustainable community signage to more neighborhoods."

It's a very Labby outcome: two ideas that deployed, found each other, and now put useful information on the street corner.