Like any startup, Mark Juba, COO of Molecular Glasses and his team had a need for money. Specifically, they lacked the wherewithal to scale-up supply of OLEDIQ from the few grams required for initial customer assessment to the higher volume needed to enable potential customers to do pilot-scale evaluations.
Molecular Glasses Scales Production of Electronic Display Innovation
Description
"The money was definitely helpful. It enabled us to do things that frankly would have been quite difficult to do without the funding and the support that was available."
Mark Juba
COO
The Challenge
Like any startup, Mark Juba, COO of Molecular Glasses and his team had a need for money. Specifically, they lacked the wherewithal to scale-up supply of OLEDIQ from the few grams required for initial customer assessment to the higher volume needed to enable potential customers to do pilot-scale evaluations.
The Solution
Molecular Glass applied for FuzeHub’s 2019 Commercialization Competition and won a $50,000 prize. The company is using part of the money to purchase, install and validate a 3-inch single zone sublimator, used to purify its materials. The rest will fund the scale-up of OLEDIQ through the company’s manufacturing partner, an upstate New York chemical manufacturer, with the goal of producing about 100 grams of materials.
Outcomes / The Impact
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed Molecular Glasses’ plans by about six months, the 2019 Commercialization Competition Award did result in the company picking up three additional customers who are now evaluating its materials.