Funding led by NEA and Khosla Ventures
New CEO Nikhil Balram brings semiconductor and display expertise to company.

SARATOGA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mojo Vision, the high-performance micro-LED company, today announced a $22.4 million new Series A investment round to propel the development and commercialization of its micro-LED display technology for consumer, enterprise and government applications. The funding round is led by existing investors, NEA and Khosla Ventures, with participation from additional investors including Dolby Family Ventures, Liberty Global Ventures, Fusion Fund, Drew Perkins, Open Field Capital, and Edge.

Using leading edge semiconductor technology, Mojo Vision is building the next-generation of micro-LEDs that will disrupt the global display industry, whose revenues, according to leading display market research company DSCC, are forecasted to exceed $160 billion in 2026. The company has identified market opportunities in the areas of augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), automotive, light field display, large format displays and others that require high performance micro-LED displays in order to provide true value and to drive broader adoption.

In 2019, Mojo Vision developed the smallest, densest dynamic display ever made, a critical component of its smart contact lens, Mojo Lens. This original monochrome display technology from Mojo Vision delivered a world record pixel pitch of over 14,000ppi, making it the smallest, densest display for dynamic content. Recently the company announced that it was decelerating work on its smart contact lens, in order to direct resources to the development and commercialization of its world-class Micro-LED display technology.

Mojo Vision Leadership Team and Expertise

In addition to the funding announcement, Mojo Vision also announced that Dr. Nikhil Balram, who previously led the display group at Mojo, has been appointed chief executive officer. Dr. Balram brings over 30 years of semiconductor and display technology experience: he most recently held the position of chief executive officer at AR systems company EyeWay Vision Inc. and prior to that, led the Display Group at Google, leading development of display systems for all Google consumer hardware products, including AR/VR. His past positions include chief executive officer at Ricoh Innovations Corporation, vice president and general manager at Marvell Semiconductor, and chief technology officer of National Semiconductor’s Display Group.

“Dr. Balram is widely recognized and respected throughout the display industry for his technical and business successes,” said Dr. Achin Bhowmik, president of the Society for Information Display (SID), the leading professional society for the display industry. “He was awarded the prestigious Otto Schade Prize in 2016 for his outstanding contributions to the advancement of image quality of information displays.”

Mojo Vision co-founder Dr. Mike Wiemer, whose vision and expertise led the Mojo team to build the world’s smallest, densest micro-LED display, will continue as chief technology officer at the company. Other key team members with deep experience in display technology include: Dr. Paul S. Martin, senior vice president of display engineering, and Dr. Grace Lee, vice president of display product management. Mojo Vision co-founder Drew Perkins will remain as chairman of the board. The Mojo team includes micro-LED, display, and semiconductor specialists with experience at companies such as Google, Apple, HP, Marvell, National Semiconductor, IBM, AU Optronics, Lumileds, and Philips. Mojo Vision’s innovations are protected by a portfolio of over 220 patents so far.

“The market opportunity in the display industry is big – over $100 billion. Sometimes in order to do something very big, you have to start very small. That is exactly what we are doing at Mojo,” said Dr. Nikhil Balram, CEO of Mojo Vision. “We started by developing the world’s smallest, densest dynamic micro-LED display, and now we are applying that innovation to power the next generation of displays. Mojo is combining breakthrough technology, leading display and semiconductor expertise, and an advanced manufacturing process to commercialize micro-LEDs for the most demanding hardware applications.”

“This round of funding will enable us to deliver our breakthrough monolithic micro-LED technology to customers and help bring high-performance micro-LEDs to market,” continued Balram.

Technology

Mojo Vision’s display and semiconductor subject-matter experts are developing breakthrough micro-LED technology via advanced semiconductor manufacturing process, delivering tiny pixels with ultra-high brightness, high efficiency and slim form factor. Mojo Vision has developed a proprietary High Performance Quantum Dot (HPQD) technology to make very small, very bright, very efficient RGB pixels.

The company’s technology includes the following advances:

Dynamic displays up to 28,000 pixels per inch
Efficient blue micro-LED devices at sub-µm scale
High efficiency quantum dot ink for red and green
High brightness at 1M+ nits
A display system that incorporates an optimized CMOS backplane, wafer-to-wafer bonding, and custom micro-lens optics
A high volume manufacturing process that is based on 300mm gallium nitride (GaN) on Silicon, and an end-to-end 300mm flow
Micro-LEDs are the only display technology that can meet all the display requirements of the emerging AR/VR marketplace. As companies work on more immersive, experiential products, micro-LEDs will be critical components to the displays within these systems, enabling more high resolution, life-like images.