Financial - Page 6

MicroLED developer VueReal announced that it has raised $14.4 million in its latest (series B) funding round, led by Cycle Capital VC and joined by TDK, Vitro, Economic Development Canada and BDC Capital. VueReal says it will use the funds to enhance its production facility, expand the team, and gain new customers.

VueReal says that the new financing round will also enable it to offer a broader range of custom display products, for AR, smartwatches, smartphones, automotive, signage and transparent displays. Last year VueReal demonstrated high-brightness and high-transmittance transparent microLED displays which it is now offering to customers.

According to reports, Google acquired Raxium, a US-based microLED microdisplay developer. The financial terms of this acquisition were not disclosed.

There's not much known about Raxium, beyond that it has developed a monolithic approach to develop microLED microdisplays, with a pixel pitch of 3.5 um.

Porous-GaN material platform developer Porotech announced that it has raised $20 million in its Series A investment funding round. The new funds Will help Porotech mass produce its microLED products,and expand its global reach. The round has been led by Ameba Capital and includes a "multinational electronics giant".

In 2021 Porotech announced it has created the world's first microLED microdisplay based on a native red InGaN LED. The microdisplay was a 0.55" diagonal panel with a resolution of 960x540 Porotech says that its native InGaN red LEDs will offer higher efficiency than currently-used AlInGaP red LEDs. Developing an RGB microdisplay all from InGaN chips will also offer easier driving and process design.

AR developer Mojo Vision announced that it has raised $45 million in its Series B-1 round, which brings its total funding to $205 million. Investors in this new round include Amazon Alexa Fund, PTC, Edge Investments and HiJoJo Partners.

Mojo Vision also announced that it has partnered with several leading sports brands, including Adidas, Wearable X, Trailforks, Slopes and 18Birdies. Together with these companies, Mojo "showcased at CES 2022 the potential role an effectively eye-mounted display could play in the lives of professional athletes".

In March 2020, we reported that CSoT (owned by TCL) and San'an Optoelectronics have agreed to co-develop micro LED materials and production processes and equipment, in a 300 million Yuan (around $43 million USD) investment.

A few days ago it was reported by the Xiamen Xiang'an Industrial Zone that the new CSoT/San'an joint project have been officially launched. CSoT and San'an Optoelectronics established a new company called Xiamen Xinying Display Technology, which will establish an R&D base in the Xiang'an industrial zone.

According to reports from Taiwan, PlayNitride is planning to IPO in 2022. PlayNitride started to sample micro-LED at the end of 2017, and in 2018 PlayNitride demonstrated its first Micro-LED prototypes. PlayNitride has a pilot production facility at Hsinchu Science Park. In 2020 PlayNitride started constructing a second production line that will start mass producing in H2 2021.

The company is also showcasing new microLED displays at Opto Taiwan 2021, which started today. The most interesting display is a 1.58" 256x256 Passive Matrix display. The company collaborated with Solomon Systech to develop the IC for this display. PlayNitride says that this display could be commercialization in 2022. PlayNitride have demonstrated PM-MicroLED displays before, together with RiTDisplay.

Hong Kong based microLED microdisplay developer Raysolve Technology announced that it raised $10 million USD in its Pre-Series A Financing Round. The funding will be used to scale up its R&D activities and initiate production of its first microdisplays.

In the last 6 months, Raysolve raised almost $15 million from an angel investor (Source Code Capital) and VCs. This new funding round was led by Gaorong Capital along with Glory Ventures.

US-based amorphous-metals based display backplane developer Amorphyx was awarded a $256,000 US NSF SBIR phase I grant towards a proof-of-concept demonstration of the company's 211 pixel circuit for AMOLED and microLED applications.

Amorphyx says that its 211 pixel circuit leverages the unique properties of the AMNR and IGZO AMeTFT device technologies to both improve upon the variable image refresh rate and power consumption improvements of LTPO while dramatically simplifying the pixel circuit's functionality and manufacturing. The Amorphyx backplane meets and exceeds LTPO performance while eliminating the LTPS TFT technology that drives the complexity of manufacturing LTPO backplanes.

Quantum Dots developer Nanosys announced that it acquired 3D Nanowire microLED display developer Glo. The financial details were not disclosed.

Glo has been developing GaN microLED displays on both LTPS and CMOS (microdisplay) backplane. The company, founded in 2003, has invested (according to Nanosys) over $200 million in its technology - which includes epitaxial LED growth, transfer technology and chip processing.

Belgium-based microLED microdisplay developer MICLEDI announced that it has raised 7 million Euro from FPIM and KBC Focus Fund. The funds will enable the company to transition from the pilot line technology development to product design and subsequently to the manufacturing phase.

MICLEDI reveals that its next steps will be to demonstrate its native-RGB microLED display on 300 mm wafers, prepare its technology IP for transfer to a foundry partner for manufacturing and launch its product development phase.