The Second Act: norxe

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norxe P1m

Can they do it again?

The founder of projectiondesign, along with a number of his former colleagues, launches a new high-end projector company: norxe.

Pronounced “Norse,” norxe debuted the first of its P Series in America at I/ITSEC. The norxe P1 projector features 4000 ANSI lumens using solid-state LED illumination.

Located in Fredrikstad, Norway, where projectiondesign was started, norxe founder Jørn Eriksen says the new company will aim for high-end projection including simulation, VR (virtual reality), control rooms and medical applications — all above 4000 lumens.

Founded in 2001, projectiondesign grew to 17 international offices, about 200 people, and approximately 60 million euro in sales in 2012.

Norxe logo

In December of that year, Herkules Private Equity III (a private equity venture capital company) sold its shares, the majority of projectiondesign to Barco NV. The next year the remaining shares passed to Barco.

“We are very pleased to become part of the Barco family, and this agreement is a significant step forward for our company,” commented Jørn Eriksen at the time. He was CEO of projectiondesign and added, “We share a common philosophy and entrepreneurial culture, driven by a focus on innovation and customer satisfaction. Joining forces with Barco, a market leader in projection technology, enables us to expand our geographic footprint and allows us to tap into Barco’s global sales team and channel portfolio.”

“The acquisition of projectiondesign plays a key role in Barco’s strategy to offer high-class projection technology to both large and mid-sized venues,” said Eric Van Zele, President and CEO of Barco in 2013. “Barco and projectiondesign complement each other on the levels of technology, product portfolios and geographic coverage. Thanks to this acquisition, we can expand our portfolios for the Simulation, Virtual Reality and Corporate AV markets as we continue to leverage our global sales coverage and our channels to grow this business, particularly in Asia and Latin America.”

Norxe Staff at I/ITSEC

Now Barco Fredrikstad is part of the Belgian-headquartered Barco and is recognized as a Center of Excellence for single-chip DLP projection technology in the visualization industry. Barco Fredrikstad works on high-resolution and compact single-chip DLP projectors-- designed, developed, and manufactured in-house for a wide variety of applications such as training and simulation, visitor attractions, planetariums, and scientific visualization.

With any post-acquisition non-compete clauses now expired, norxe is located in the same town. And targeting similar high end applications. It hopes to re-create some of the attraction projectiondesign had as it grew— a flat management organization with a faster reaction to market and a company size that brings it closer to the size of many of the channel partners. The product designed by norxe seems to be made at nearby Norautron, a contract manufacturer.

In fact, norxe executives publicly claim they started the company in response to partners’ demand. The clear advantage of a team of experienced executives is that you can start off with a channel that already knows you.

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