Get in on a Burgeoning Market Battery maker lands a powerful $13.2 million in funding.

In a world where electronics and gadgets are getting smaller and more sophisticated, the batteries that power them need to shrink as well. That's opened up a big market for Solicore, a Lakeland, Fla.,-based developer, manufacturer and supplier of ultrathin, flexible lithium polymer batteries under the Flexion brand. These skinny power sources can be used for everything from RFID tags to micro medical devices. However, the sweet spot the company has found are "smart" credit cards, such as Bank of America's SafePass, which generates single-use passwords to protect against fraud.

It's a market on the move. A 2008 report from research firm RNCOS estimated that the global shipment of smart cards surpassed 5 billion units in 2008, and that the number will grow by an average of 11 percent per year through 2012.