Apple Computer Inc.'s iPad runs on touch-pad technology developed by a firm called Fingerworks at the University of Delaware, funded by Main Line investors, then spirited west to Apple's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters.
That's according to Lennart Hagegard, the former Asea Brown Boveri (and Ikea) executive who settled in Wayne in the mid-1990s, and backed a string of U.S. firms as a venture capitalist and "angel investor", with varying success.
Now retired to his native Sweden, Hagegard told me about his happy Fingerworks experience yesterday, after his brief visit back to Philadelphia was extended by Iceland-volcano flight delays.
"It was these two professors:" John Elias, who taught electrical engineering, and his student Wayne Westerman, "a typical young engineer with a lot of ideas, and very, very skilled."
Hagegard was attracted by the founders' mix of hardware and software, the skilled craftsmanship in the maze of small circuits and switches melted into plastic that Elias and Westerman were preparing to commercialize through a line of keyless, highly touch-sensitive keyboards, marketed at first to people with hand injuries so they could compute more easily.
After Fingerworks hired salesmen and managers, "I invested in September 2004," with a handful of others, raising a total of less than $1 million. "A month later, we got the first offer from Apple," for around $5 million. They held out, and began talks with Japanese manufacturers.
"Five months later, Apple tripled its offer," to "around $14 million," and "we couldn't say no anymore. I got about seven and a half times my money back, in less than half a year."
Westerman joined Apple. Elias stayed at the university. Apple, famously reticent about product development, didn't return my calls seeking comment.