MICLEDI Microdisplays today announced a first closing of its Series A funding round with participation from imec.xpand, PMV, imec, KBC and SFPIM demonstrating strong support for the company’s value proposition and commercial and technological progress achieved in the seed round. Series A follows a significant seed round award and additional non-dilutive funding in the form of grants and other vehicles from VLAIO. This brings the company’s total funding to date to nearly $30 million.
“The company’s achievements during this seed round have been astounding,” said Sean Lord, CEO of MICLEDI. “Our door is open to engagements with some of the world’s largest and most innovative electronic product manufacturing companies, most of whom are working on their own internal development projects for augmented reality (AR) displays in such diverse use cases as smart-wearable devices and automotive HUDs. This level of total funding to date is almost unheard of for a four-year-old startup.”
MICLEDI used the seed round to validate a unique 300mm wafer manufacturing methodology, the first in the world at 300mm. Seed funding also enabled the company to prove best-in-class blue and green GAN-based microLED arrays with pixel-by-pixel microlenses in its unique 300mm flow. The company also demonstrated solid red performance using red GAN material with early proof of superior performance based on red AlInGaP. All three colors, R, G, & B, were demonstrated to large audiences at CES 2024 and SPIE AR-VR-MR 2024.
Lord added, “This newest round of funding will be used to expand the team, design and build an active backplane ASIC, and create a fully-functional microLED display module that can be used in glasses for AR displays. In addition, the new funds will help support collaboration agreements with customers and ensure that we keep pace with the growing demand for increasingly immersive video applications from Tier 1 customers and partners in the rapidly growing AR market.”
Industry experts agree that GAN-based material technology is the only pathway to RGB microLED displays that are bright enough to meet the demands of AR as well as other related applications of microdisplays. MICLEDI, in conjunction with key customers, has launched specialty displays to serve these applications while continuing its primary focus on AR for consumer applications. MICLEDI and Global Foundries (GF) agree to transfer the company’s unique microLED manufacturing flow into GF’s CMOS fab in conjunction with backplane ASICs designed in GF’s advanced CMOS process nodes, also a first in the microLED industry as part of the enablement of cost and volume demands of the burgeoning AR market.
Coming in 2024, MICLEDI will have available full-color modules with an active backplane and is developing configurations of all three basic intrinsic color arrays with quantum dot filtering on already brilliant green and blue arrays. In addition, MICLEDI will introduce its first demo glasses in the first half of 2Q24.
