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JOLED

OLED display hardwareJapan
New to Unitard
💀 Dead / Bankrupt
Peak $1.37 BillionToday
~-100%
from peak
  1. 🦄
    Became a unicorn
    Aug 2018
  2. 📈
    Peak valuation
    $1.37 Billion ’18
  3. 💔
    Became a Unitard
    Mar 2023
  4. 💸
    Last valuation
    Wiped out
Capital raised
$930M
Total raised
$293K/day
Raised per day

Total raised averaged per day over approximately 8.7 years from founding to bankruptcy or shutdown. This is not measured cash burn. Methodology

Funding: CB Insights ($929.74M across five rounds, 2018-2020)
Current status
Civil rehabilitation filed Mar 27, 2023 at Tokyo District Court (preservation and supervision orders same day); exited panel manufacturing and sales; R&D business sold to Japan Display for about ¥1B

The rise & fall

8 moments · 2014–2023

The key moments.

Jul 2014
Founded to merge Sony and Panasonic OLED units
INCJ, Japan Display, Sony and Panasonic form JOLED to mass-produce printed OLED panels; operations start in January 2015.
Tokyo Shoko Research
Dec 2017
First printed OLED panels ship
A first batch of 4K OLED panels for medical monitors goes to Sony.
Wikipedia
Aug 23 ’18
The peak: ¥47B round led by Denso$1.37B
Denso's ¥30B buys about 19.7%, implying about ¥152B ($1.37B); Toyota Tsusho, Sumitomo Chemical and SCREEN join.
MONOist
Nov 2019
Nomi mass-production plant completed
The former Japan Display site in Nomi, Ishikawa, is converted for printed OLED output.
Wikipedia
Jun 19 ’20
TCL's display arm invests ¥20B
CSOT-Japan takes new shares and the two agree to co-develop large printed OLED TV panels.
Phile Web
Mar 27 ’23
Files for civil rehabilitation — joins the Unitard Club 💔
JOLED files at the Tokyo District Court with ¥33.7B of liabilities and an accumulated deficit near ¥120B.
Tokyo Shoko Research
Mar 29 ’23
Manufacturing exit: 280 of 380 staff to go
JOLED leaves panel production and sales and plans to close its two production lines.
OLED-Info
May 30 ’23
Japan Display buys the R&D business for about ¥1B$7M
A new JDI unit takes over JOLED's OLED technology development and about 100 employees.
MONOist
$1.37Bof peak value erased · 9 years

How it happened

JOLED was set up in Tokyo in 2014 by the state-backed fund INCJ, Japan Display, Sony and Panasonic to combine the two electronics makers' OLED panel units and mass-produce screens with a printing process. In August 2018, Denso, Toyota Tsusho, Sumitomo Chemical and SCREEN put in ¥47B.

MONOist reported that Denso's ¥30B bought about 19.7%, which implies a value near ¥152B ($1.37B). TCL's display arm added ¥20B in 2020 and a plant in Nomi, Ishikawa, began mass production, but losses reached ¥87.8B in the year to March 2021.

JOLED filed for civil rehabilitation at the Tokyo District Court on March 27, 2023, with liabilities of ¥33.7B, and exited manufacturing. Japan Display bought its research business for about ¥1B.

Source: MONOist (Aug 24, 2018): ¥47B third-party allotment on Aug 23, 2018 (Denso ¥30B, Toyota Tsusho ¥10B, Sumitomo Chemical ¥5B, SCREEN Finetech ¥2B); post-deal stakes INCJ 38.9%, Japan Display 25.1%, Denso 19.7%. Peak keyed to the round's implied value: ¥30B ÷ 19.7% ≈ ¥152B ≈ $1.37B at ≈ ¥111/$ (arithmetic on reported stakes). CB Insights lists $1.8B (Mar 21, 2018, 'Corporate Minority - IV') without a disclosed round or price, and $929.74M raised in total. Phile Web / Display Daily (June 2020): ¥20B share allotment to TCL CSOT's CSOT-Japan for 10.76%. Tokyo Shoko Research (Mar 2023): founded July 2014; civil rehabilitation filed Mar 27, 2023 at Tokyo District Court, liabilities ¥33.741B; net loss ¥87.785B in FY to Mar 2021 and ¥23.926B in FY to Mar 2022; accumulated deficit ¥119.787B; could not fund exit costs for the Nomi and Chiba plants. OLED-Info (Mar 29, 2023): 280 of 380 employees to be laid off. MONOist (May 31, 2023): JDI board approved buying the R&D business for about ¥1B on May 30, 2023, hiring about 100 staff.

Who ran it

  • Tadashi Ishibashi
    president & CEO (led at peak)
    No public profile matched

Disclosed investors (9)

Historical funding participation; lists may be incomplete and do not establish current ownership or investor losses.

* Lead in a funding round · Crunchbase ↗ · 2026-10-22 · Methodology · Leaderboard

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