How Epishine Spent Its EIC Accelerator Grant on Indoor Solar Cells

A TV remote that never needs new batteries is the most visible thing Epishine has made. In November 2025 Ohsung Electronics, a Google TV partner, presented the G32, a reference remote for Google TV whose disposable batteries are replaced by printed organic solar cells from Epishine on both sides of the casing, according to 9to5Google and Chrome Unboxed. Linköping University, where the technology was born, says the deal means the cells "will soon" be in remotes for millions of smart TVs and TV boxes, according to its April 2026 news item. At the time of the launch reports the remote was not yet bundled with any device or sold on its own.

Six years earlier, in the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2 cut-off of 3 April 2019, the European Commission selected Epishine for a grant to bring the same technology to market for wireless sensors in buildings. The project, Epishine LEH, received an EU contribution of €2,328,044.25 towards a total cost of €3,325,777.50, according to CORDIS. The Commission's list of selected companies names Epishine AB alone for the project, with no partner company, and places it in Norrköping; CORDIS and the Swedish register give its address as Attorpsgatan 2 in Linköping.

Where Epishine Stands Now

Epishine is active. The Swedish register lists Epishine AB as an active limited company with 41 employees in its 2024 accounts and Mattias Josephson as managing director, according to Ratsit and Syna. Josephson, one of the founders who led the company in its early years, returned as chief executive in August 2026 after Anders Kottenauer stepped down, and the board is recruiting a chief operating officer, the company said in an announcement. It is exhibiting at electronica in Munich in November 2026.

It is the third change at the top since the founding years: Anna Björklou was CEO at the 2021 product launch and the 2023 funding round, and Kottenauer led the 2024 placement, according to eeNews Europe reports from 2023 and 2024.

The Technology: Solar Cells Printed for Lamplight

Silicon solar panels are tuned to sunlight and lose much of their efficiency under indoor lamps, which deliver a few hundred lux rather than the tens of thousands of a sunny day. Organic photovoltaics use carbon-based polymers instead of silicon, and their absorption can be tuned to the narrower spectrum of LED and fluorescent light. Epishine prints the active layers on plastic film in a roll-to-roll process and, instead of printing every layer in sequence, bonds two printed layers together by lamination under heat and pressure, according to eeNews Europe. Its first production version, launched in February 2021, converted 15% of light at 20 to 1,000 lux into electricity at 0.5 volts. The cells are thin and flexible but cannot go through reflow soldering because they are heat-sensitive.

The competition is amorphous silicon, long used in solar calculators, and newer indoor cells such as dye-sensitised and perovskite modules. In its EIC proposal Epishine claimed a third-party-verified efficiency "more than 65% better than closest competition at 50 lux" and an entry price of €1 for a 20 cm² module, according to CORDIS. No independent benchmark of those two claims was found.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

Epishine LEH ran from 1 August 2019 to 31 July 2021; the grant agreement was signed on 11 September 2019. The proposal described the project as "the first step in an accelerated commercialisation process" to bring the light energy harvesting module to market with IoT sensor makers within three years, and set a goal of 25 million modules a year by 2024, €100 million in revenue and 288 jobs at Epishine, according to CORDIS.

The final periodic report says Epishine released "the world's first, and currently only commercially available, printable organic PV product for indoor use", sold an evaluation kit through Farnell's web shop, ran pilot-scale production of hundreds of modules for customer projects, and that trial partner Pollux released a product based on the modules. Its production site was "undergoing ISO 9001 certification". The project ended on schedule. The public final report and a user documentation deliverable are listed on CORDIS but could not be downloaded for this article.

1. Commercial indoor light harvesting moduleDeliveredLaunched February 2021, per eeNews Europe and the CORDIS report.
2. Market entry with IoT sensor makersDeliveredEvaluation kit, Pollux product, Miromico and ACSS as early users.
3. Industrial-scale productionLatePilot scale at project end; own roll-to-roll factory opened in November 2023.
4. 25 million modules a year by 2024Not achievedNo volume announced; 2024 revenue SEK 12.1 million.
5. €100 million revenue and 288 jobsNot achieved41 employees in the 2024 accounts.

The grant did what such grants are meant to do: it carried a laboratory process to a product that customers could buy within the two-year project. The commercial forecasts attached to it were off by orders of magnitude, and the industrial scale-up took two more years and further public money.

What Epishine Has Achieved Since the Award

The private money arrived after the grant. In June 2021, a month before the project ended, AxSol, the solar energy arm of the Axel Johnson group, led a SEK 80 million round and became the largest single shareholder with 20%, with Philian, Beijer Ventures, Vigo Carlund and Almi Invest GreenTech, according to Axel Johnson and IoT Now. Jula Miljö & Energi led SEK 60 million in July 2023, and Pareto Securities placed SEK 69 million in May 2024, eeNews Europe reported. Earlier, in October 2018, LiU Holding, Almi Invest Greentech and others had put in SEK 11.3 million, according to Global University Venturing.

Public money kept coming too. The EU's LIFE programme granted €2,431,502 for LIFE SUNRISE from September 2022 to scale up production, according to pv magazine and North Data. Epishine coordinates the Horizon Europe project ENLIGHTENED, which started on 1 September 2024 to demonstrate light harvesters in retail, property technology and consumer electronics, with €699,606.25 of a €3,248,488.59 EU contribution going to Epishine; partners include the shelf-label maker Pricer, according to CORDIS. In May 2024 eeNews Europe reported a SEK 38 million EU-funded project led by Epishine with Sentinum, Connected Inventions, Minew and e-peas; the report does not name the programme, and its partner list does not match ENLIGHTENED's, so whether they are the same project could not be verified. North Data also lists Epishine in the EU projects MENTOR, PERSEUS and FADOS. In 2025 the Swedish Energy Agency granted SEK 33.7 million to expand the roll-to-roll line, according to pv magazine and North Data.

The factory came in November 2023: a roll-to-roll line in Linköping with an annual capacity of 100 million modules, according to TaiyangNews and Techarenan, which also names Sentinum and Nichicon as partners. During the EIC project, roll-to-roll production had been handled by Ynvisible Production, also in Linköping, eeNews Europe reported in 2021. Linköping University lists remote controls, wireless keyboards, shelf-edge labels, environmental sensors and asset trackers as applications. Actual sales volumes are not public.

The Money

The filed accounts show a company still spending far more than it earns. Revenue was SEK 12.1 million in 2024, up 28.2% from SEK 9.4 million in 2023 but below the SEK 16.2 million of 2020, the first full year of the EIC project. The net loss was SEK 55.9 million in 2024 and SEK 207.2 million over the five years 2020 to 2024. Equity stood at SEK 31.5 million at the end of 2024, an equity ratio of 41%, down from 86.4% in 2021, according to Ratsit, whose revenue, result and staff figures match Syna. Neither shows accounts for 2025. The aggregators do not split product sales from grants or other income.

Why Europe Should Care

Epishine's pitch is aimed at battery waste. The EU Batteries Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, sets requirements for portable batteries in devices to be removable and replaceable, phased in from February 2024, according to the European Commission. A device that harvests its own power from room light reduces the number of batteries that need replacing and collecting. Solar photovoltaics is also one of the technologies covered by the Net-Zero Industry Act, which aims for European factories to supply at least 40% of the EU's needs for such technologies by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. A printed solar cell made in Sweden is a small part of that supply chain.

The Verdict

Epishine has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.