Dresden-based beeOLED, a deeptech startup, announced on Wednesday, August 23, that it has secured €13.3M in a Series A round of funding.
The company says it will use the money to advance the development of its high-efficiency deep-blue emitter technology and prepare it for market entry.
The startup aims to transition from R&D to market-ready stages with a focus on practical applications for its technology.
Investors in this round
The round was co-led by eCAPITAL and Innovation Industries. The round also saw participation from KBC Focus Fund, and existing investors M Ventures (the corporate venture capital arm of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany), HTGF, TGFS, and JBN-Invest.
Paul-Josef Patt, Managing Partner and CEO of eCAPITAL, says, “As an early investor in the OLED space, we have seen many startups that aimed to solve this last major challenge of OLED displays.”
“But beeOLED was able to convince us as they not only have the most promising solution but also the experienced team needed to bring such a disruptive technology to the market, especially with key experience in the OLED-materials field.”
Tom van Vuren, Director at Innovation Industries, adds, “Increasing the efficiency of the blue emitter in OLED displays is a key driver to reduce energy consumption in modern TVs, tablets and smartphones. Our investment into beeOLED is therefore in line with our mission to support ground-breaking deep tech startups for a more sustainable future.”
Developing a new standard in OLED tech
beeOLED was founded in 2020 by veterans from the OLED industry and is led by serial entrepreneur Jan Blochwitz-Nimoth, who co-founded Novaled.
The company is focused on solving a significant issue in the OLED field: creating an efficient and long-lasting deep-blue emitter for improved displays in devices.
beeOLED’s technology involves optimising atomic emission for use in vacuum-coated small-molecular OLEDs, leveraging expertise in Lanthanide chemistry and its application in devices like phones, tablets, laptops, and TVs.
Carsten Rothe, CTO of beeOLED, says, “Our technology seamlessly integrates into existing OLED structures and established OLED display manufacturing technology. The technology allows for 100 per cent internal quantum efficiency, a prerequisite for the highest power efficiency in OLED displays.”
The German startup is coming out of stealth mode to present its progress at the “International Meeting on Information Display” (IMID) in Busan, South Korea, on August 25. This event will serve as the official unveiling of their advancements.
Blochwitz-Nimoth adds, “It’s incredible to see that after all these years, this critical issue for OLED displays still hasn’t been solved. This creates a huge market potential for a materials provider.”
“We are very happy that we not only found the solution to that issue but also were able to team up with such an amazing group of investors to fund the commercialisation of this technology.”
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