Realfiction updates on its ECHO development and Sales Activities

Realfiction Holding AB (“Realfiction” or “the Company”) announces a general update on its progress in the development of its ECHO holographic display technology and its Sales Activities.

A summary of the latest progress per business area is presented below.

ECHO development
Together with the Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP (Fraunhofer FEP), Germany, and Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (imec), Belgium, Realfiction has been working on completing its ECHO holographic display technology integration license package. The development is progressing according to the plan, and the integration license package is expected to be completed before 31 March 2022.

“We are thrilled to be working together with world leading research organizations like Fraunhofer FEP and imec. Their expertise in this area is highly renown, and the fact that they are committed and enthusiastic about our project makes me very confident that we will achieve our goal,” says Clas Dyrholm, CEO of Realfiction.

The development plan includes two paths: one being the OLED path, and the other being the LCD path. OLED is expected to be the future standard of consumer television, but in the shorter timeframe, LCD is expected to sell at greater volumes, and combined with ongoing upgrading of the technology, the LCD market is expected to account for the largest portion of the display market for many years to come. To be prepared for these market conditions, the Company added two Taiwan-based display technology experts to the ECHO development team in early October 2021.

“We are proud to have attracted two experts in Taiwan, with both of them holding a Master of Science degree in Electro-Optical Engineering. Our new display experts have a combined 21 years of display experience from large successful electronics companies like Foxconn, Innolux and others. This experience relates to OEM tasks for mobile phones, tablets and TV displays, including display technologies with large and smaller pixels,” says Clas Dyrholm, and continues: “In addition to bringing hard-to-acquire technical expertise to our team, we are also getting access to a wide people network in the display manufacturing industry that most likely includes our future license and manufacturing partners. Being a small Scandinavian company with limited resources compared to these engineers’ former employers, we are really excited that they decided to join Realfiction to contribute to the creation of the holy grail of 3D – the future holographic display standard.”

As previously announced, Realfiction has been awarded a grant of up to 5 MDKK (6.8 MSEK) in future non-dilutive cash payments from Innovation Fund Denmark. The grant will be partially used to fund the costs of Realfictions new team members, but the Company will also attract talent within other areas. By strengthening its core team, Realfiction will be in a better position to further improve and protect the IP rights to its patent pending hardware and software.

With regards to the patent application process, Realfiction is now in the “PCT National Phase” for the first ECHO patent applications. This means that the Company has started to pursue the grant of the patents directly before the national patent offices of the countries in which Realfiction wishes to obtain the patents. Please refer to the attached overview of the PCT System and here for more information about the PCT timeline.

“Protecting the IP of the ECHO technology is extremely important, and we are spending significant resources to position us correctly to avoid sharing the value of our invention with other parties,” says Clas Dyrholm, and continues: “Onboarding of collaboration partners and licensing of the ECHO technology takes longer than with our other hardware, but this is simply just part of our due diligence plan which is required with the much higher stakes at play when being on the verge of disrupting an industry in the way we are looking forward to doing.”

When it comes to licensing, Realfiction is pursuing the main vision for ECHO, which is to include the technology in large TVs and displays to enable truly immersive and social holographic experiences. However, there are several other verticals where smaller ECHO displays could be very useful, and where the time to market is potentially even shorter due to lower hardware, software and manufacturing complexity involved. This includes the automotive segment, where Realfiction is receiving specific interest from potential customers. Realfiction continues to believe that a first ECHO display product could potentially reach the market in 2023.

“As mentioned in a recent press release, we will intensify the commercial dialogues with large display manufacturers during the coming months,” says Clas Dyrholm, and continues: “At the same time, we keep an open mind to opportunities in other verticals, and we are currently pursuing some requests from the automotive segment to potentially deliver a smaller ECHO display in a favorable timeframe. Such a smaller display could spark excitement for ECHO ahead of a broader, consumer-focused launch of larger displays.”

Magic-as-a-Service (MaaS) for Retail
Realfiction’s go-to market model has been revised through learnings from initial roll-outs in Denmark and Sweden, and it was lately tested in a leaner and simpler organizational setup in 25 German EDEKA stores. After a successful test, the project was interrupted by COVID-19, and EDEKA is currently refraining from pursuing an expansion due to shifted internal priorities. Realfiction is currently not investing further in expanding this market model as the Company’s primary focus is on succeeding with the ECHO technology. Realfiction will however evaluate MaaS for Retail opportunities when they arise and continue to service the ongoing agreements that exists.

MaaS for Exhibitions and Experience (Hardware)
The positive trend in this part of its business, which was announced on 21 July 2021, continues as the Company delivered solutions to a few events in September in North America and Europe and several Dreamoc XL4 and Diamond displays to an Asian and some European end-customers and partners. Realfiction continues to receive an increasing number of requests for quotes as more markets are preparing to allow physical events and meetings in the coming quarters. The Company’s sales pipeline is getting closer to the pre COVID-19 level, and there is still room for improvement as several parts of the world are still heavily impacted by COVID-19.

“We are on a solid track with positive development in both our ECHO development and our Sales Activities. I hope that this update conveys that we continue to be firmly on schedule when it comes to creating a complete hardware and software solution for next-generation holographic experiences in social settings, and that our Sales Activities are recovering from the COVID-19 sales levels,” says Clas Dyrholm.