Mojo Vision Inc., a startup developing micro-LED display technology for devices such as wearables and TVs, today announced that it has raised $21.1 million in fresh funding.

The investment was led by New Enterprise Associates, Khosla Ventures and new investor Vanedge Capital. More than a half-dozen other backers contributed as well. The capital was provided as an extension to a Series A round originally worth $22.4 million that Mojo Vision announced earlier this year.

A traditional LED display is made up of two main layers. The first layer includes pixels while the other contains diodes, tiny electronic devices capable of emitting light. The diodes shine their light on the display’s pixels, which in turn use it to render images.

Micro-LED screens like those developed by Mojo Vision are based on an entirely different design. Their diodes, the components that usually generate light for pixels, are so small they can themselves function as pixels. A micro-LED display is in effect a grid of tiny light-emitting devices without the usual layer of pixels on the front.

The technology is drawing significant interest from hardware makers because it facilitates the development of brighter, more power-efficient displays. Micro-LED displays can also achieve higher pixel, that is diode, density than traditional displays. The more pixels there are per square inch, the higher a display’s resolution.

The company originally launched in 2015 with the goal of building augmented reality contact lenses. As part of its product push, it developed custom micro-LED display technology. Last year, it decided to shift its focus away from contact lenses and focus on commercializing its micro-LED design.

Mojo Vision claims to have built the world’s world’s smallest and densest dynamic display in 2019 using its technology. That display had 14,000 pixels per square inch. For comparison, a 8K TV has around 160 pixels per inch while an HD screen includes less than 100.

It has made significant improvements to its hardware since 2019. This past May, it disclosed that its micro-LED technology can be used to build screens with up to 28,000 pixels per square inch. More recently, it detailed a red micro-LED display that it says has more pixels per inch than any other device in the product category. 

The company makes its displays from semiconductor wafers based on gallium nitride, a material commonly used to produce diodes. The displays rely on nanometer-scale crystal structures called quantum dots to render images. The inventors of quantum dots won this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry.

“Mojo Vision developed a world-class AR display the size of a grain of sand and is now extending that same technology across the industry for the next generation of displays,” said co-founder Drew Perkins.

The company will use the proceeds from its latest capital raise to continue enhancing its technology. It also intends to accelerate commercialization efforts. 

Image: Mojo Vision