Your Next TV Might Roll Out of a Printer

Makers of electronics hoping to win over consumers with sharper, more vivid displays are turning to a screen technology called organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Consuming less power than liquid-crystal displays, or LCDs, OLEDs can also bend into all sorts of shapes. Samsung Electronics uses them in its latest generation of Galaxy smartphones, and LG Electronics features them in its top-of-the-line TVs.

The industry’s migration away from LCDs has created an opening for Kateeva, a Newark, Calif., company that’s developed an inkjet-printing method to produce OLED displays. Kateeva, whose name comes from the Hebrew word for “writing,” has raised more than $200 million in venture capital since it was spun off from an MIT lab in 2008. Investors include Samsung, Spark Capital, and TCL Capital, the venture capital arm of one of China’s leading electronics companies. “We feel OLED is the future,” says Tong Xuesong, vice president of TCL.