Light Polymers, a nanochemistry startup with R&D operations in Silicon Valley, Taiwan and Korea, announced today a $5m strategic funding round led by Tsingda International Venture Capital and TEL Venture Capital. The proceeds from the Series B round will be used for strategic projects and a related acquisition that will be announced soon.
“We’re excited to have two new strategic investors join Light Polymers’ Series B funding,” said Marc McConnaughey, President and CEO of Light Polymers.
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(Image: Light Polymers) |
Tsingda International Venture Capital is part of the Tsinghua Innovation Center in Dongguan (TICD), which is a joint venture fund between the Dongguan Government and Tsinghua University according to McConnaughey. Tsingda brings us a powerful partner in China to accelerate our chemistry material technologies in a number of areas. Light Polymers will set up a joint development laboratory in Songshan Lake with TICD.
“Tsingda is very pleased to become a strategic investor in Light Polymers,” remarked Bin Xiao, General Manager of Tsingda International Venture Capital (the investment arm of TICD). “We believe that Light Polymers’ platform of Lyotropic Liquid Crystals has many promising applications.”
TEL, a global leader in semiconductor and flat panel display manufacturing equipment, also joins this round. By working with TEL industry experts closely, Light Polymers can advance the use of their proprietary chemistry in the booming OLED flat panel market for standard, and eventually inkjet, industrial OLED printing.
“TEL has been working with Light Polymers for some time now and we believe it now is the time to invest,” according to TEL Venture Capital, President, Kay Enjoji. “Combining TEL’s strengths in process technology and Light Polymers chemistry can bring significant benefits to the OLED industry.”
Light Polymers has conducted extensive application and commercialization research on the use of lyotropic liquid crystals in LED Lighting, LCD and OLED displays, Building Materials and Biomedical fields. Light Polymers OLED chemistry is now in trial stages with a number of potential commercialization partners.