OLED displays: Berlin founder invents brilliant new technology

In the video: Luminous packaging for medication reminds patients of the correct dosage or the expiry date.

Inuru's inexpensive lighting technology can also be permanently supplied with energy for other applications using an external power source, such as a normal power bank. This opens up new possibilities: such as clothing that can glow. Inuru is in talks with the fashion industry and manufacturers of workwear, among others. Actively glowing safety clothing would have advantages over clothing that is only visible through warning colors or external light sources through reflectors.

Inuru wants to eliminate packaging waste

Even if that already sounds like the future. Ratajczack actually thinks much further; he wants to solve the fundamental problem of packaging waste. “We believe that packaging is only thrown away because there are already printed surfaces,” says the founder. “If displays are integrated into this packaging, they can be returned after use, washed out and used again. We are developing a product that the future needs.”

One of the difficulties in this vision is the displays, because so far Inuru has only produced single-color pixels. In a next step, Inuru's technology will also allow animations, such as displaying the temperature on a bottle or the heartbeat on a smartwatch. For this, the individual pixels must be able to be controlled. Inuru's ultimate goal is to easily print real HD displays with different colors, like those we know from smartphones today. This will enable manufacturers to simply stream new digital content for their packaging onto a label via Bluetooth. At Easter, a digital rabbit suddenly hops across the chocolate packaging, and at Christmas, a snowman waves from the shelf in retail stores.

10 million euros for a long-term vision

“This is not an easy project. We are not talking about three to five years, but rather ten to 20 years,” says Ratajczack. The founder seems to have the will. And his company is in a good financial position so far. The startup has received around 10 million euros from investors so far. With its investment, the company first built a pilot line in Berlin-Adlershof, then mass production for OLEDs in Wildau near Berlin. The plant is now able to produce eight million OLEDs per year. That's a lot of packaging.