Samsung Display has bought the German startup Cynora for around 300 million US dollars.
According to Bloomberg, the takeover has not yet been publicly announced — although author Mark Gurman is apparently certain that his sources are right that Samsung Display is said to have paid around $300 million for Cynora GmbH and thus acquired their technology for OLED displays but employees of the company were fired.
Cynora has specialized in the development of flexible displays for foldable smartphones and has also been developing next-generation color rendering technology. The company said its approach could improve the energy efficiency of the displays as well as enhance the contrast between colors.
Cynora developed a new type of organic emitting materials for OLED displays based on TADF (Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence) technology at Triwo-Technopark. The aim of this technology was to bring the first high-efficiency blue emitting material to the market to enable a reduction in power consumption in OLED devices and higher display resolution. While the red and green pixels emit enough luminosity, the blue particles were underdeveloped, according to Cynora in 2019.
Samsung was previously an investor in Cynora, and the company was also backed by LG Electronics Inc. and other display manufacturers.
According to some investors, the startup simply ran out of funds and had to take desperate measures in order to return some of the money to the companies that provided financial support to it. Samsung, therefore only acquires the technology of the company, which has more than 700 patents on its flag.
