Mojo Vision, a company once noted for its work on smart contact lenses, has raised $22.4 million in a new Series A investment round which it will use in a pivot to develop and commercialize 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 other investors including Dolby Family Ventures, Liberty Global Ventures, Fusion Fund, Drew Perkins, Open Field Capital, and Edge.

The new Series A comes months after the company was forced to put its smart contact lenses on hold, which also included a 75% downsizing in the company’s workforce.

Prior to the pivot, the company had amassed $205 million in outside investment, with its most recent in January 2022 bringing to the company $45 million.

Its new focus is on displays for AR/VR, automotive, light field, large format displays and others that require high performance micro-LED displays. Mojo’s prototype smart contacts made use of its own in-house displays, which at the time included a monochrome display capable of over 14,000 pixels per inch (ppi).

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Now the company is developing its own High Performance Quantum Dot (HPQD) technology to make a “very small, very bright, very efficient RGB pixel,” the company says in a press statement.

The company is boasting a number of advances in its proprietary technology, including dynamic displays with up to 28,000ppi, efficient blue micro-LED devices at sub-μm scale, high efficiency quantum dot ink for red and green, high brightness at 1M+ nits, and a display system that incorporates an optimized CMOS backplane, wafer-to-wafer bonding, and custom micro-lens optics.

Mojo Vision’s new CEO, Dr. Nikhil Balram, is said to bring semiconductor and display technology expertise to the company:

“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 Balram. “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,” concluded Balram.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • JakeDunnegan

    That looks like some amazing technology, and one I could see a large scale adoption of – provided they go through all the testing and impact of things like “will it ruin your normal vision?” or “avoid eye infections” and the like.

    • I shall always prefer smart glasses. idk how people even deal with contacts. My eyes feel quite sensitive.

      • JakeDunnegan

        yeah, I wear glasses – but I have to wear two kinds (short and long range) due to almost 4 decades of looking at computer screens at short range. (Well, technically, I’ve now had glasses for about 15 years…)

        So, yeah, not sure that these would work- – unless, included in the technology they could have two types of prescriptions.

        Dang, I think I just gave someone a cool idea, once the tech catches up. ;)

    • Alexisms

      Solid, thick contact lens!? My eyes are watering at just the thought. These will hurt. Also how are they supposed to be kept level without rotating at all?

      • JakeDunnegan

        I imagine they’d have to be pretty thin to be adoptable at all.

        Not sure if such a thing is possible today, but, in the near future, I could definitely see it. (No pun intended!)

      • Max-Dmg

        And they will probably require a USB-C connection plugged in for power. But the blue screen of death would be cool.

  • Guest

    Pivot is such a weasil word after a company has collected money from investors and is using it for something else!

    • Smokey_the_Bear

      OR they realized smart contact lenses are 5 years away, and money is finite. So they PIVOTED to something that is easier, and far more feasible to make a return on all those investments.

  • it’s very cool… but the contact lens is what made us dream

  • mellott124

    These guys are good at raising money, that’s for sure.

  • Tawni

    I would love to be one that gets to test drive these. As a person loosing her central vision in left eye, I see the possibility of extending the abilities of everyday life much longer with the use of technology.