University of Sheffield spin-out, Pixel-Flo, has raised £5.25m in seed funding to tackle a bottleneck in MicroLED display manufacture.
The funding round was led by Northern Gritstone with additional investment from SCVC, the Parkwalk Northern Universities Venture Fund, and German investment firm, HTGF.
MicroLED is the next wave of display technology, offering 2-5x higher brightness and 2-4x greater efficiency than traditional displays. However, volume adoption of microLED is currently limited by scalability challenges of mechanical mass transfer techniques.
Pixel-Flo’s proprietary Continuous-Flow Mass Transfer technology has been developed to reduce costs through “fluidic self-assembly technology” and therefore enable products from smartwatches to TVs to be available at “mass market price points.”
It was co-founded by Dr Rick Smith, Dr Suneal Ghataora and Simon Jones, building on novel semiconductor photonic research from Smith’s lab and Jones’ extensive display-industry commercial experience.
“This investment allows us to expand our team and demonstrate our unique technology on a commercial coating system, enabling partnership and evaluation by display manufacturing partners,” explained Rick Smith, CEO and Co-founder of Pixel-Flo.
“We are proud to have a fantastic international consortium of complementary investors led by Northern Gritstone supporting our international ambitions to enable huge new market opportunities for microLED.”
The oversubscribed funding round will support Pixel-Flo’s transition from laboratory development towards industrial scale-up, expanding their team and relocating to new lab and office space.
It’s also looking to international expansion and recently hired Taiwan-based Business Development VP, Sanger Hsu, focused on early customer engagement in a critical market for display technologies.
“Pixel-Flo is a great example of the deep-tech innovation with global ambitions emerging from the Northern Arc that Northern Gritstone strives to support,” added Duncan Johnson, CEO of Northern Gritstone.
“By developing a scalable, lower-cost solution, Pixel-Flo’s MicroLED mass transfer assembly process has the potential to unlock MicroLED displays for the mass market.”
Professor Sue Hartley, Vice-President for Research and Innovation at the University of Sheffield, continued:
“Pixel-Flo represents the potential impact of the world class research taking place at the University of Sheffield and the importance of an innovation ecosystem backed by financial investment in helping to realise that potential. The company’s approach to addressing a critical bottleneck in industry together with its international growth ambitions are an inspiration to other spinout companies emerging from the North of England. I am excited to see the company grow following this new investment.”
