EBOOM CAPITAL: Are Exit Strategies Imminent for Venture Capitalist’s LED Lighting Investments?

When sales projections are rosy and share prices of publicly traded companies are booming (EBOOM CAPITAL July 29), venture capitalists invested in private companies rub their hands together and think about strategies to convert their positions to cash. That’s the way it is these days in the LED lighting sector.

VantagePoint Venture Partners, based in Silicon Valley with offices in Hong Kong and Beijing, has one of the largest LED portfolios of all venture capital firms. LED, or light-emitting diode technology, is competing with the traditional incandescent light bulb and with new compact fluorescent light bulbs for the global $100 million lighting market. 

Here is VantagePoint Venture Partners’ LED portfolio:

• BridgeLux, Inc., based in Livermore, California, is a mature developer, manufacturer and supplier of LED products for a wide variety of interior and exterior applications that the company describes as high-quality light sources at a disruptive price.

  BridgeLux says its

  family of LED Array products is successful in the marketplace based on quantity of light, energy efficiency, color rendering, targeted lighting color temperatures, color consistency, beam uniformity and cost. The company raised an additional $50 million in January 2010 and is embarking on a global marketing and collaboration program.

  (Other disclosed VC investors: DCM, Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, El Dorado Ventures, VentureTech Alliance, Harris and Harris.)

• Huga Optotech Inc., based in Taiwan, is a mature manufacturer and supplier of LED wafers and chips. Founded in 1998, Huga rolled out its first LED chip in 2000, just about the time that the global LED industry was about to take off. Huga sales have increased 10-fold over the past five years.

  The company has two production sites and a total of 1,100 employees. Taiwan-based LED chip maker Epistar is the largest shareholder with approximately 49 percent. 

  (Other disclosed shareholders: Everlight Electronics, Win Semiconductors.)

• Glo AB, based in Lund, Sweden, and founded in 2005, is a development-stage company focused on development and commercialization of novel and low cost nanowire light-emitting diodes (nLEDs).

  The technology is based on 11 years of research on nanowires at Lund University’s Nanometer Structure Consortium, a leading center for research into next-generation quantum nanoscale semiconductor materials and devices for electronics and optoelectronics applications.

  (Other disclosed VC investors: Teknoinvest AS, Provider Venture Partners AB, Hafslund Venture AS, Nano Future Invest A/S, Agder Energi Venture AS.)

• SuperBulbs, based in Redwood City, California, is an early-stage stealth-mode company with patent-pending technology for a new generation of LED light bulbs. The company’s goal is to develop an LED light bulb that is price competitive with compact fluorescent bulbs, saves 30 percent more energy and lasts years longer. 

  SuperBulb’s first product is a 4″x2″ A19 bulb that produces the same lumen output as a 60W incandescent bulb, can be screwed into a light system, has a sturdy casing, and is dimmable. Unlike compact fluorescents, however, SuperBulbs says the A19 uses no mercury, turns on instantly, is more efficient and has a minimum average life of over 20,000 hours.

  (Other VC investors: none disclosed.)

Other VC LED portfolios

Chrysalix Energy Venture Fund, of Vancouver, British Columbia, has a couple of positions in LED startup companies including Bridgelux, Inc., noted above, and Light-Based Technologies. 

• Light-Based Technologies, based in Vancouver, was formed in 2004 to explore the unique benefits that controlled current of LEDs could bring to the rapidly growing solid-state lighting industry. The company has developed a suite of LED controllers that offer a simple and effective solution for linear multi-phase control of LED light sources. This technology can produce whatever level of resolution is required for an unlimited number of outputs.

  (Other disclosed VC investors: GreenAngel Energy Corporation.)

Draper Fisher Jurvetson, of Menlo Park, California, with offices in Shanghai, China, and Bangalore, India, has positions in two late-stage LED companies.

• Intematix Corporation, based in Freemont, California, was founded in 2000 and has grown to a multi-national company with more than 230 employees globally and offices in China, Taiwan and the U.S.

  Over the past five years, Intematix has become a leading provider of phosphors to the lighting industry. Intematix's phosphors are currently used in LED TVs, solar-powered desk lamps  and a variety of commercial and retail applications worldwide.

  (Other disclosed VC investors: CrossLink Capital, East Gate Capital Management.)

• Luminus Devices, Inc., based in Billerica, Massachusetts, develops and manufactures high performance solid-state light sources – called PhlatLight LEDs – for the general illumination-lighting, projection display and industrial signage, and UV-curing market segments. Holder of more than 150 issued and pending worldwide patents for big chip LED technology, the company has manufacturing facilities in Billerica and Woburn, Massachusetts, as well as in Taiwan, Japan, and Thailand.

  (Other disclosed VC investors: Argonaut Private Equity, Braemar Energy Ventures, Paladin Capital Group, Stata Venture Partners, CMEA Ventures, Eastward Capital.)

Photo credit: trenttsd via Flickr

DISCLOSURE: The writer has no positions in, or professional connections with, these companies.