InfiniLED Announces Access Agreement with Tyndall National Institute

“The access agreement is an exciting step forward for InfiniLED. The skills, infrastructure, ISO certification and capabilities at the Tyndall National Institute are unique with Ireland and the UK. This is reflected in the quality of the research emerging from the institute. For InfiniLED to be able to access these capabilities will enable us to deliver products to customers in an efficient and timely manner. It will also allow InfiniLED to build on our technology base and to further enhance the performance. The availability of wafer growth, chip fabrication and advanced photonic packaging & test facilities at the Tyndall National Institute allows InfiniLED to develop devices from raw materials to full systems without incurring the cost of acquiring such equipment and facilities itself. It means that InfiniLED can provide a range of solutions to customers based on µLED™ (MicroLED) technology in a form that is most suited to their requirements” said Joe O’Keeffe, CEO of InfiniLED.

“This access agreement further strengthens the two way relationship between Tyndall National Institute and InfiniLED. It demonstrates Tyndall’s flexibility in working with Irish indigenous spin out companies and assisting them in their growth trajectory. Tyndall will continue to work with InfiniLED’s technology and team to incorporate the µLED™ (MicroLED) into future Tyndall client companies system solutions while InfiniLED brings their own extensive market and customer knowledge in their identified target growth areas. This is another example of the important of the Government’s investment in ICT (Photonics) convergence into new markets at Tyndall and its impact on Ireland’s current and future economic success. ” said Kieran Flynn, Head of Business Development at the Tyndall National Institute.

“The µLED™ (MicroLED) technology brings huge technological advances to customers by controlling the light directly at the point where it is created. As well as our core devices, InfiniLED also delivers unique solutions for customer needs. This engagement with Tyndall allows InfiniLED to develop solutions that are tailored at the chip level and to include all the required optical and control supports. This enables InfiniLED to deliver plug-and-play solutions to customers across a range of markets including diagnostic devices, LED printing, microscopy and others.” added Dr. Bill Henry, Chief Commercial Officer of InfiniLED.

InfiniLED is an innovation development project and portfolio company of ScienceWorks Ventures plc, the international IP commercialisation company. It is also an Enterprise Ireland supported spin-out company from the Tyndall National Institute and University College Cork. Post-investment, ScienceWorks remains InfiniLED’s largest shareholder along with senior management.

InfiniLED develops a range of LED light source modules based on its patented µLED™ (MicroLED) technology, which it has licensed from Tyndall. InfiniLED has a number of on-going development contracts with international customers. It is aiming to bring the first µLED™-based products to the market before the end of 2012. The areas of application for InfiniLED technology range from diagnostic testing devices to consumer products.

The microLED technology was invented by a team of researchers led by Mr. Brian Corbett at Tyndall National Institute, supported and funded by Enterprise Ireland. Under the Enterprise Ireland Business Partner Programme, entrepreneur Joe O’Keeffe, who has already spun out a series of successful companies, evaluated the commercial potential of the µLED™. InfiniLED was launched in April 2011 and was co-founded by Dr. Bill Henry, Chief Commercial Officer of InfiniLED. He had worked on the development of the technology and the commercial opportunities while at Tyndall. The securing of this investment marks the next step in moving this world-class Irish research from the lab into the market place. It will allow InfiniLED to build its team, to ramp-up development of the technology and to target new opportunities.

For additional information please visit http://www.infiniled.com/

About InfiniLED:
InfiniLED is a next generation Light Emitting Diode (“LED”) development and production company based in Cork, Ireland. The Company’s strategy is focused on achieving significant market share in certain sectors of the vast and fast growing LED market through its ground-breaking µLED™ (“Micro LED”) by forming partnerships with major global manufacturers of LED dies and wafers. The µLED™ is a next generation LED technology developed specifically to deliver more usable light using less energy.

About ScienceWorks Ventures plc:
ScienceWorks is London based IP commercialisation company with a major operations centre in Cork, Ireland. The company sources and acquires market-ready IP rich innovations and develops them into valuable start-up businesses. ScienceWorks acquires and licenses innovation from corporates, universities and research institutes worldwide with a particular focus on life sciences, clean-tech, med-tech, nano-tech, ICT and electronics sectors. ScienceWorks provides seed funding and a full range of business development to all companies in its portfolio.

About Tyndall National Institute:
Tyndall National Institute, University College Cork is one of Europe's leading research centres. With ca. 450 staff, students and academic and industrial and visiting researchers. Tyndall undertakes internationally leading research into information and communications technology hardware for applications in the digital economy, energy, healthcare and care of the environment. Tyndall uses its facilities and expertise to support industry and academia nationally and provides large numbers of highly qualified graduate students, key to the development of Ireland’s national economy. Tyndall has over 200 industry partnerships and customers worldwide. Several start-up companies in Ireland have been based on technology originating at Tyndall. The Institute’s researchers include 125 PhD and 10 Masters students.  38 nationalities are represented within the institute at all levels, with its research published in 200 peer-reviewed publications last year. Income for 2010 was over €33m.