INCJ leads $230m round for Japan's JOLED

INCJ will contribute JPY20 billion to the investment, which will also be supported by Sony and Nissha, a company that makes touchscreens. It will support the advancement of two mass-production facility projects, which will be operational in 2020 with a capacity of 220,000 display panels per month.

JOLED specializes in screens based on organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), electroluminescent materials that are brighter, thinner, more efficient, and more physically flexible than traditional liquid crystal display (LCD) or plasma technology. The company was established in 2015 as an integration of the OLED R&D units at Sony and Panasonic.

The new factories will be the first OLED display production operations globally to apply a technique known as RGB printing, which allows for higher fidelity in color reproduction on digital screens. According to a statement, JOLED will focus on medium-sized panels, up to 32 inches across, for use-cases including automotive displays and high-end monitors.

The company has faced technological difficulties making phone-sized screens but expects to differentiate itself in the market for larger screens by focusing on professional applications in fields such as medical, broadcasting, and transportation. Unlike the home TV market, the B2B monitor market has not yet seen substantial OLED product development.

JOLED and its sister company Japan Display, which was also co-established by Sony, are considered among the few Japanese electronics suppliers focusing on the cutting edge of display screen technology. Both are backed by INCJ and seen as indicators of growing VC investment potential in Japan’s OLED space. 

JOLED has also supported the segment as an investor, backing a $13.5 million round for Kyulux, a company developing OLED lights that are said to be more environmentally safe and cheaper to produce than standard systems. Kyulux is targeting a global OLED market estimated to value more than $32 billion by 2020 as the likes of Apple roll out new products using the technology.

Other activity in this space includes Polaris Capital agreeing a $35 million exit for Tokyo-based Clean Surface Technology, and an $88 million investment from a group of Asian VCs in US-based Kateeva. Meanwhile, GSR Ventures has committed $35 million to C3Nano, a US chemical products supplier with a footprint in China and Korea that specializes in nanomaterials used in OLEDs. 

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• North Asia
• Industrials
• Early-stage
• Technology
• Japan
• Innovation Network Corp. of Japan (INCJ)
• manufacturing