News: LEDs
22 February 2022
Porotech secures $20m Series A investment
Porotech (which was spun off in 2020 from the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride at the UK’s University of Cambridge) has secured $20m Series A investment to accelerate global expansion and mass production of its micro-LED products. The funding is designed to ensure that the company keeps pace with growing demand from its customers and partners in the $140bn display market.
A “multi-national electronics giant” is among the participants in the Series A funding round, which has been led by Ameba Capital and includes previous investor Speedinvest.
Porotech says that its PoroGaN porous gallium nitride (GaN) material enables the firm’s micro-LED products to deliver monochrome and full-color displays on a single indium gallium nitride (InGaN) material system, with the brightness, efficiency and resolution required for high-quality image projection against bright backgrounds – even outdoors in daylight. The red micro-LED product is already achieving best-in-class performance, it is claimed.
Micro-LED displays will play a vital role in the next generation of TVs, wearables and smartphones, and GaN-based material technology is widely seen as the only technology that can deliver displays that are bright and efficient enough to meet the requirements of extended reality (XR) displays involving virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and/or mixed reality (MR), says Porotech.
Until now, the requirement to mix multiple material systems has complicated the manufacturing of full-color micro-LED displays, making the final products prohibitively expensive for mass-market applications, the firm says, adding that its use of a single material system opens the door to mass manufacturing of micro-LED displays.
“We have delivered the world’s first InGaN-based red micro-LEDs and displays and have set up production of our first products – shipping to some of the biggest global names in display technology,” says CEO & co-founder Dr Tongtong Zhu.
“This latest funding will accelerate our work to ensure that PoroGaN drives the commercialization of XR glasses and the new wave of user-interface innovation. It will help us to continue our expansion plans to meet demand and to continue to provide world-class service and products to our rapidly expanding customer and partner base,” he adds.
“The fact that it already has industry leaders among its clients and partners is a testament to the game-changing potential of Porotech's breakthrough,” comments Arthur Chen, a partner at Ameba Capital.
Porotech creates first native-red InGaN micro-display
Porotech appoints former Arm executive as chief commercial officer
Porotech teams with micro-LED panel firm Jade Bird Display
Porotech raises £3m to fund development of micro-LED production technique
Porous GaN firm Porotech completes £1.5m seed round
