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Impact story: Porotech
Porotech’s technical breakthroughs in micro-LED displays have redefined what is possible.
In November 2018 Porotech’s pitch nailed first prize in the yearly Postdoc Business Plan Competition run by Cambridge Enterprise in partnership with Entrepreneurial Postdocs of Cambridge. Co-founded by Dr Tongtong Zhu (CEO), Dr Yingjun Liu (CTO) and Professor Rachel Oliver (CSO), Porotech had hit upon and developed a new class of porous gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor material with the potential to transform micro-LED displays.
Porotech’s co-founders: Dr Tongtong Zhu (CEO), Dr Yingjun Liu (CTO) and Professor Rachel Oliver (CSO)
Porotech has not slowed its pace since that win four years ago.
The company formally spun out of the University’s Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy in January 2020 and in April that year, Porotech announced a £1.5 million seed investment, led by Cambridge Enterprise. The investment enabled Porotech to develop a pilot plant and produce its first major products resulting in November 2020 the launch of the world’s first commercial native red indium gallium nitride (InGaN) LED epiwafer for micro-LED applications.
In June 2021 Porotech announced its next milestone, a £3 million investment round to fund the delivery of monochrome and full-colour displays on a single InGaN material system. The goal was to achieve the bright, efficient and sharp resolution necessary for high-quality image projection against bright backgrounds.
Porotech reached its technical goal, creating ‘smart’ pixels that could be controlled independently for superior responsiveness and accuracy for use in augmented reality applications.
In February 2022 it announced a $20 million Series A round.
Micro-LED displays will play a vital role in the next generation of televisions, wearables, and smartphones. GaN-based material technology is widely seen as the only one that can deliver displays that are sufficiently bright and efficient for extended reality displays involving virtual reality, augmented reality and/or mixed reality.
Until now, the requirement to mix multiple material systems has complicated the manufacture of full-colour micro-LED displays, making the final products far too expensive for mass-market applications. Porotech’s use of a single material system is a leap forward that opens the door to mass manufacturing of micro-LED displays.
Less than five years after its Postdoc Business Plan Competition win, Porotech has industry leaders among its clients and partners and is poised to transform the global display market as it accelerates mass production of its revolutionary micro-LED products.
All images courtesy of Porotech
Annual Review 2022
This impact story was first published in the Cambridge Enterprise Annual Review 2022.
View our Annual Review 2022 to learn more about some of the exciting breakthroughs and innovations that we have been part of during 2021-2022.