Media Resources Lands $3M Gov’t R&D Grant To Expand Into Fine Pitch LED

February 7, 2022 by Dave Haynes

The Toronto-area LED and conventional sign company Media Resources has landed a $3 million grant from Canada’s National Research Council that will help extend its LED line-up into fine pitch products.

Under the Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) Large Value Contribution program, the company says in PR that the $2,999,680 CAD grant also includes advisory services and connections to the best business R&D expertise within the NRC. This grant will significantly accelerate the expansion of Media Resources’ core VISIONiQ display technology, especially in outdoor fine pixel pitch, and enhance the engineering department with the addition of twelve scientists and engineers to further help promote the Media Resources brand expansion into global markets. 

“NRC’s support has always been of great importance to our company. Their industry-leading specialists and research connections have helped us accelerate our long-term goal of becoming the market-recognized leader for the highest level of reliability and technology in both indoor & outdoor digital LED displays. We could not be more pleased to receive this support from the NRC. They have been a true partner in our growth over the past few years, and this support will allow us to continue to enhance our product line, expand our amazing engineering team and ultimately improve our market competitiveness,” says Jeff Rushton, President & CEO of Media Resources. 

“This grant will allow us to extend our current VISIONiQ product line from traditional outdoor and indoor LED signage to the emerging market of leading-edge fine pixel LED displays. Our solution, once fully developed, will provide innovation, comprehensive redundancy, monitoring, robustness, superb image quality and longevity not currently available in the market today,” adds Cheng Qian, the company’s Chief Product Architect. “Our goal is the have a next-generation indoor & outdoor Fine Pixel Pitch product that is superior to all known competitors in North America.” 

I know zip about Canadian R&D grants, so can’t say if this common or unusual. But the funding is no doubt welcomed. Media Resources is a super-interesting company for at least a couple of reasons:

It comes out of the traditional sign business and still does that work, which means customers can not only buy LED displays from Media Resources, that company also has the trucks, hoists and experienced people to put the displays up on a building, highway or in an arena.

The company is investing heavily in an automated manufacturing facility in Canada, doing work that’s normally off-shored to Taiwan or China. Lots of companies do design and final assembly over here, but get components built in Asia. Media Resources is doing the whole nine yards in Oakville, Ontario.

I did a podcast with Rushton back in 2020: