Luminus Devices raises $72M for LED manufacturing
In a sign of the maturation of the LED market, Luminus Devices has taken a meaty $72 million round to manufacture lights for a number of new consumer and commercial markets.
Luminus has made LEDs –which some say will be soon dominate lighting — for the display market, including televisions and monitors. However, the company will now begin making its “PlhatLight” LED for general-purpose lighting and several specialized applications like medical lighting.
One reason the financing is so large is that Luminus does its own manufacturing rather than outsourcing production, so expanding capacity requires some fairly large investments for facilities and equipment costs. It has now swallowed a total of $130 million, which is worrying because it is still not profitable, though it plans to be next year. Many other LED companies have raised money lately, including Element Labs, Luxim (see our coverage) and Albeo.
The $72 million funding was led by Braemer Energy Ventures and joined by CMEA Ventures and Paladin Capital Group. Previous investors Argonaut Private Equity, Battery Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Eastward Capital and Stata Venture Partners also chipped in. Luminus is based in Billerica, Mass.
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About the Author, Chris Morrison
Chris Morrison writes about cleantech and environmental issues for VentureBeat, with occasional forays into gaming and semantic technology. He got his start writing about tech for Business 2.0 magazine, but quickly realized new media was the ticket when that institution closed its doors in 2007. Chris has also covered public equities and regulatory issues. He originally hails from southern Virginia, graduated from Evergreen State College in Washington, and now lives in San Francisco.