According to reports, Samsung Display acquired OLED material developer Cynora, for about $300 million. Samsung acquires just the IP and technology, and Cynora terminated its entire workforce a couple of weeks ago. Samsung is already an investor in Cynora, and so is LGD.
Cynora has been low on cash (its last financing round was in 2019), according to reports, and did not manage to find new investors, and so the company opted to be sold to Samsung. The reported sum seems to be rather high for an emergency exit, and some later reports quotes much lower sums, perhaps even around $30 million or so.
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Comments
300 Mio USD for a non-vallidated and non-commercial technology is not realistic. The same guys (Samsung) acquired Novaled for about the same ammount of money, but with a production-proven technology and commercial sales of 40 Mio €. And they did not lay off the workforce, sinde the needed them to sustain material supply and further development
30 Mio € to enrich the IP portfolio of Samsung seems more a realistic number.
Sad to see an OLED materials developer go under but I think the writing is on the wall for TADF emitters, as I doubt they will ever reach the colour purity the industry demands. Phosphorescence and hyperfluorescence (which uses TADF molecules in combination with regular fluorescent emitters) seem to be the future.