Introducing Dispelix – a pioneering augmented reality (AR) display technology company that develops transparent waveguides for AR and extended reality (XR) devices. In other words, Dispelix is bringing us closer to a future where AR glasses can seamlessly layer digital information over the real world, whether we're navigating the city, getting live updates, or interacting with virtual objects.
Dispelix, which is part of the EIC Scaling Club Next-Gen Computing group, was founded in 2015 by three Finnish research scientists: current Chief Executive Officer of the company Antti Sunnari, Chief Scientific Officer Juuso Olkkonen, and Member of the Board Jyrki Saarinen. It was created as a spin-off company of VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, a state-owned tech and research center.
Dispelix's initial funding came from Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation, which had an investment project dedicated to new businesses arising from various research ideas. Over the years, Dispelix's technology continued to evolve and prove itself in the competitive AR market. As a result, the company has consistently drawn the attention of investors – its latest Series B funding round in 2021 raised $33 million.
With its proprietary waveguide design software, Dispelix's mission is to “enable the unseen fusion of the virtual and the real and enable our customers to realise their product visions in AR.” Headquartered in Espoo, Finland, Dispelix also has subsidiaries in the US and China. The company collaborates with various manufacturing partners to execute their tech designs and provide cutting-edge AR and XR solutions to their customers.
As Juuso Olkkonen explained to Tech.eu, “Dispelix’s see-through displays are the lightest and thinnest on the market and maintain vivid colours, image quality, and wide field-of-view. Our team of world-class scientists and engineers continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible with our arsenal of unique software and hardware technologies – fundamentally changing the way nanophotonics-based waveguides are designed and delivered to the delight of our customers.”
For a company operating in a rapidly developing and highly competitive field, Dispelix has to be able to not only keep up with the latest innovations but also lead the advancements themselves. The Dispelix team has done so successfully – in April 2024, the company celebrated a major innovation milestone, having received its 200th patent for waveguide display technology.
This extensive research work and the patent portfolio have helped Dispelix establish various strategic partnerships. In recent years, it has partnered with tech giants like Foxconn and Pegatron to develop reference designs for AR glasses. These and other partnerships aim to accelerate the production of advanced AR devices and bring them closer to mainstream adoption. By working with global manufacturing leaders, Dispelix ensures its innovations can scale efficiently, meeting the growing demand for high-quality AR solutions in both consumer and enterprise markets.
The EIC Scaling Club is a curated community where 120+ European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth.
The top 120+ European deep tech companies will be carefully selected from a pool of high-growth scale-ups that have benefitted from EIC financial schemes, other European and national innovation programmes, and beyond.
The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership by Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.
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