Earlier this year Philips announced its intention to spin-off its OLED activity, and the company started searching for a buyer for its whole OLED business activity. Today it was announced that US-based OLEDWorks will buy the key parts of Philips OLED lighting business.
Philips will establish a new legal entity and transfer key parts of its OLED business, including the production facility located in Aachen, Germany, and relevant IP. This new entity will then be sold to OLEDWorks, which will be granted a license by Philips to market its OLED light source components under the Philips brand. Philips will remain a distributor of the panels through its OEM sales channels.
This is a very interesting development. OLEDWorks is a relatively small company, and it is strange that they can take over Philips' relatively large OLED operation - which is probably still not profitable. OLEDWorks' last financing round was in 2013 - and that probably was not a large round (round A). It's possible that following this acquisition we'll soon hear that OLEDWorks raised more money or attracted a large partner.
OLEDWorks was established in July 2010 by former Kodak OLED business experts and is the only US-based OLED lighting producer. The company developed a proprietary low-cost production process and received three DoE grants (see here,here and here) to further develop is OLED technology. In July 2014, Acuity Brands unveiled new applications for its Marker OLED luminaire, which uses Amber OLED panels made by OLEDWorks. OLEDWorks is also cooperating with Corning to develop flexible glass based OLEDs.
I wish all my friends at Philips and at OLEDWorks the best of luck...
