University of Sheffield spinout Pixel-Flo raises £5.25 million Seed round to tackle critical bottleneck in MicroLED manufacturing 

Pixel-Flo, a University of Sheffield spin-out addressing a critical bottleneck in MicroLED display manufacturing with its proprietary Continuous-Flow Mass Transfer technology, has raised £5.25 million in Seed funding.

The round was led by Northern Gritstone with additional investment from SCVC, the Parkwalk Northern Universities Venture Fund, and German investment firm, HTGF.  

Pixel-Flo is developing the cost reduction breakthrough critically needed for MicroLED display manufacturing, through its highly scalable, cost-efficient approach. MicroLED is the next wave of display technology, offering 2-5x higher brightness and 2-4x greater efficiency than traditional displays. However, volume adoption of microLED is currently limited by the fundamental scalability challenges of mechanical mass transfer techniques. By comparison, Pixel-Flo’s proprietary fluidic self-assembly technology offers extremely high continuous throughput, delivering the high-performance of MicroLED at radically reduced processing and material cost. This will allow MicroLED enabled products from smartwatches to TVs to be made available at mass market price points. 

Pixel-Flo was founded by Dr Rick Smith, Dr Suneal Ghataora, and Simon Jones. The company builds on novel semiconductor photonic research in Dr Smith’s lab, drawing on long-running LED research from the University of Sheffield’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and Simon Jones’s extensive display-industry commercial experience. The latest oversubscribed funding round will support Pixel-Flo’s transition from laboratory development towards industrial scale-up, expanding their team and relocating to new lab and office space. Pixel-Flo’s international expansion ambitions are underscored by its recent hiring of a Taiwan-based Business Development VP, Sanger Hsu, focused on early customer engagement in a critical market for display technologies. Last year, Pixel-Flo was part of the NG Studios cohort, Northern Gritstone’s deeptech venture builder. 

Rick Smith, CEO and Co-founder of Pixel-Flo, said: “This investment allows us to expand our team and demonstrate our unique technology on a commercial coating system, enabling partnership and evaluation by display manufacturing partners. We are proud to have a fantastic international consortium of complementary investors led by Northern Gritstone supporting our international ambitions to enable huge new market opportunities for microLED.”   

Duncan Johnson, CEO of Northern Gritstone, said: “Pixel-Flo is a great example of the deep-tech innovation with global ambitions emerging from the Northern Arc that Northern Gritstone strives to support. As a graduate of our NG Studios venture building program, the company combines world-class science with a clear path to commercial impact. By developing a scalable, lower-cost solution, Pixel-Flo’s MicroLED mass transfer assembly process has the potential to unlock MicroLED displays for the mass market.”  

John Williams, SCVC General Partner, said: “Deep Tech is full of breakthrough technologies looking for a problem to solve. Pixel-Flo inverted that — an elegant solution to the bottleneck that has held microLED back, a display technology that outperforms on every metric. The syndicate around them reflects what the management team has already built.” 

Anne Umbach, Senior Investment Manager at HTGF, added: “From my experience in displays and printed electronics, I know all too well how challenging it is to scale new display technologies. Pixel Flo’s approach targets precisely this critical bottleneck in the micro-LED market — and this team has what it takes to deliver a key technology for the next generation of displays.” 

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About Pixel-Flo 
Pixel-Flo develops a process for enabling scaled-up MicroLED display manufacturing. Founded on groundbreaking academic research from the University of Sheffield, the spinout’s Continuous-Flo mass transfer manufacturing process addresses a key industry bottleneck in traditional mass transfer methods, which scale poorly with panel area. Their Continuous-Flo platform is based on two Pixel-Flo owned technology elements: MicroLED ink and the equipment extension of industry-standard coating tools. Pixel-Flo’s Continuous-Flo technology extends the industry-standard coating approach, reducing processing costs with panel size, lowering material costs, and improving wafer utilisation. For more information, please go to: https://pixel-flo.com/ 

About Northern Gritstone 
Northern Gritstone is an investment company dedicated to supporting ambitious science and technology businesses in the North of England. Its philosophy is ‘profit with purpose’ combining strong returns for investors with wider positive, societal and economic impact, including high-skilled job creation and regional growth. Chaired by Lord Jim O’Neill, the company has made 50 investments to date in some of the UK’s most exciting future businesses. 

Northern Gritstone works alongside NG Innovation Services (NGIS), its high-performance growth experts for early-stage science and technology companies. The five functions within NGIS, which includes NG Studios, connect ambitious company founders with funding and expertise to quickly scale their businesses. 

About SCVC 
SCVC is a Deep Tech specialist investor and the official funding arm of Science Creates, investing from pre-seed to Series A in category-defining Deep Tech. Its team of exited founders — whose ventures have created over $2 billion in enterprise value — takes a hands-on approach, partnering closely with startups to turn breakthrough science into globally impactful companies. 

About Parkwalk (Northern Universities Venture Fund) 
Parkwalk is the UK’s most active investor in university spinouts, backing transformative technologies developed by the country’s leading universities and research organisations. Parkwalk focuses on investing in companies addressing real-world challenges with IP-protected innovations across DeepTech, HealthTech and CleanTech. 

As the leading growth EIS fund manager, with £400 million in assets under management, Parkwalk has invested in over 200 companies via its EIS Funds, as well as through enterprise funds managed for the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol, and Imperial College. Parkwalk also manages the Northern Universities Venture Fund in collaboration with Northern Gritstone, targeting opportunities emerging from the Universities of Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, and Sheffield. 

The University of Sheffield 
The University of Sheffield is a leading Russell Group university, with a world-class reputation, ranked within the Top 100 universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2026). Over 30,000 students from 150 countries study at Sheffield and in a truly global community, they learn alongside over 1,500 of the world’s leading academics. Sheffield’s world-shaping research feeds into its excellent education. Students learn at the leading edge of discovery from researchers who are tackling today’s biggest global challenges.  

At its core, Sheffield is a place where independent thinkers can come together in pursuit of a shared ambition. To ask bold questions, push boundaries, and make a difference. This is what makes the University of Sheffield one of the best in the world. From the first documented use of penicillin as a therapy in 1930, to building Europe’s largest research-led manufacturing cluster, Sheffield’s inventive spirit and top quality research environment sets it apart.  

Current research partners include Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Unilever, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Siemens and Airbus, as well as many government agencies and charitable foundations. Sheffield was named University of the Year for Student Experience by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2026 and its Students’ Union, which is home to more than 350 societies and clubs, has been ranked the best Students’ Union among all UK universities in the National Student Survey (NSS). Over 300,000 Sheffield alumni from 205 different countries make a significant influence across the world, with six Nobel Prize winners included amongst former staff and students.