Pixel-Flo secures £5.3m in seed funding to solve microLED mass transfer challenges
The University of Sheffield spinout raised the capital from an international syndicate led by Northern Gritstone to scale its continuous-flow assembly process.
Share allotment filed at Companies House
Pixel-Flo is a University of Sheffield spinout developing continuous-flow mass transfer technology to streamline microLED screen manufacturing.
Sheffield spinout Pixel-Flo has secured £5.3m in seed funding to scale its continuous-flow mass transfer process for microLED displays. The round was led by Northern Gritstone, with participation from SCVC, the Parkwalk Northern Universities Venture Fund, and Germany based HTGF. The capital will enable the firm to expand its headcount, transition from laboratory research to commercial scale, and test its technology on an industrial coating system.
MicroLED technology offers superior brightness and efficiency compared with existing screens, but commercialisation has stalled due to mass-transfer bottlenecks for features under ten microns. Pixel-Flo aims to eliminate these production hurdles by using fluidic self-assembly to keep panels moving continuously, removing the need to reload wafers or stamps. The company plans to target manufacturing partners in Asia, supported by recent executive hires.
From the founder
"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. 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"
Rick Smith
CEO and co-founder at Pixel-Flo
Investor perspective
"Deep Tech is full of breakthrough technologies looking for a problem to solve. Pixel-Flo inverted that — an elegant solution to the bottleneck that has held microLED back, a display technology that outperforms on every metric. The syndicate around them reflects what the management team has already built"
John Williams
general partner, SCVC
Use of funds
- 01Grow the team
- 02Scale operations
Investors
Duncan Johnson
Northern Gritstone
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John Williams
SCVC
Parkwalk Northern Universities Venture Fund
Anne Umbach
HTGF