Recently, V Fund led the A financing round of multi-million yuan for Raypai Photonic Crystal, a leading mass production AR optical waveguide module company in China.
Zhu Feng, Partner of V Fund, said: "Since 2020, the development of AR display has significantly accelerated, and the B-side has started to take the lead in a wide range of fields including security, automotive, industrial production, medical and so on, while the C-side is also ready to take off with the promotion of Apple, Huawei and other head enterprises. V Fund is optimistic about the potential of the AR display track and the development prospect of core suppliers. Raypai Photonic Crystal is currently the leading display module solution provider in China, and its technical route, product performance and production capacity have been recognized by many first-tier manufacturers downstream. V Fund believes that Raypai Photonic Crystal will have great room for development with its solid technology, product expertise and significant first-mover advantage!
Li Wei, CEO of Raypai Photonic Crystal, said: "Raypai's team has been dedicated to the research and development of optical waveguide technology since 2008, with the goal of providing high-performance, low-cost and lightweight core display components for the AR glasses industry. After 12 years of hard work, Raypai's mass-produced products have been recognized and highly evaluated by customers and partners at home and abroad. In 2021, Raypai will continue to strengthen R&D and expand production capacity to provide better performance and quality optical waveguide products for the rapid development of AR glasses industry.
This A financing round is a milestone, as Raypai's technology and product capabilities have been well known in the industry, and this is the first time the company has introduced market-based investment institutions, reflecting capital's forward-looking judgment of the consumer AR market explosion. Raypai will leverage the power of capital to prepare for the super-large scale production capacity on the eve of the consumer AR market explosion and achieve kk-level and higher supply capability.
Shanghai Lipai Optical Crystal Technology Co., Ltd. is a leading supplier of geometric optical waveguide modules in the industry. Since its establishment, it has been focusing on the development of optical waveguide display technology for AR glasses. It is the only company in China and the only two in the world that has a complete layout of intellectual property rights for geometric light waveguide modules, and the core team has many years of industry accumulation in the field of optics and AR.
Over the past 20 years, Raypai has made a number of significant breakthroughs at the business and product levels.
(1) The optical waveguide module was officially mass-produced in 2020, and the order volume increases nearly 10 times compared with 2019 under the promotion of anti-epidemic applications. The mass-produced 40° geometric light waveguide module was favoured by many head customers in the industry upon launch and is the best light waveguide module with the best display effect among the mass-produced products in the industry.
(2) Raypai Completed and started mass production of a 20,000 sets per year optical waveguide module production line. Construction of a new kk-class mass production base has also commenced with this financing round completed and is expected to be in operation in the second half of this year.
(3) Significant technical breakthroughs have been made in the development of optical waveguide modules, and new products of cross-genre significance may be launched in mass production by the end of 2021.
Compared to smartphones, AR glasses display images on glasses, which has many advantages: first, it can free hands, users do not need to hold smartphones, thus can greatly enhance the convenience of use, significantly expanding the application scenarios of intelligent terminals; second, virtual information and display information can be well matched, which can increase many AI-based applications; third, with a strong sense of immersion, 3D display effect is better; fourth, the display size is larger. Therefore, AR glasses are considered to be the next generation of smart terminals that can achieve 1 billion shipments after smartphones, and consumer electronics giants such as Apple, Huawei, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Google and OPPO have laid out.
As the most intuitive and influential part of the end-user experience, display technology has been regarded as the breakthrough of AR technology. It has evolved and iterated over the past decades, trying to find a solution that can simultaneously meet the most optimal hardware size, FOV, Eye box, image quality, brightness and power consumption.
The optical waveguide solution combines the advantages of good imaging effect, thinness and high light transmission rate, and has been unanimously approved by major giants on the technical path. With the gradual maturity of optical waveguide technology and industry chain, it is expected to lead AR glasses from indoor to outdoor and ignite the consumer market at the end of 2021, and Raypai has already participated in the pre-selection of some giants.