Luminus Devices, Inc., designer, developer and manufacturer of high light output PhlatLight® LEDs, today announced the closing of its round of funding totaling $19 million, led by current investors Argonaut Private Equity, Braemar Energy Ventures, Paladin Capital Group and Stata Venture Partners. This investment creates a fully funded operating plan to increase profitability, maintain minimal debt, support growth and the expansion of Luminus’ products and applications. This includes “Big Chip” LEDs in specialty lighting applications, projection displays, digital signage and ultra-violet industrial processes.

“Luminus’ investor syndicate is one of the strongest groups of venture backed talent in the clean energy technology space. With their experience investing in solid state lighting companies, their support facilitates our leadership team’s implementation of a strong growth strategy across a diverse portfolio of global markets, products and applications,” said Keith T.S. Ward, president and CEO, Luminus Devices. “This financing has dramatically improved our balance sheet, simplified our equity structure, while better aligning investor objectives with management’s market-focused strategy.”

Designed to provide an ultra-bright, reliable light source, PhlatLight LEDs are currently used by some of the world’s largest companies, including Acer, LG, Philips Vari*Lite, Sony, Samsung and Toshiba. Luminus’ display business is thriving as PhlatLight LEDs are now being powered in every projection platform technology, including: DLP, 3LCD and LCOS. Luminus technology enables products that use LEDs in all projector categories, including pico, pocket and data, as well as home theater.

“We continue to be bullish on energy efficiency, especially in the area of LEDs and solid state lighting, which makes up a large portion of our portfolio. With our expertise in the area and Luminus’ dominance as a LED manufacturer and supplier across multiple market segments, it provides a great investment opportunity for Braemar,” said Dennis Costello, managing partner, Braemar Energy Ventures. “Through our past investments in the company, as well as those of our partners, we’ve been able to support the growth of Luminus’ technology. Today, we’re pleased to see more and more lighting applications are using PhlatLight LEDs.”

“We invest in companies with strong leadership and breakthrough innovations in high growth markets. We’re proud to back the Luminus team again. It’s incredibly rewarding to see the rapid adoption of the PhlatLight LED products in a diverse range of commercial, industrial and defense applications,” said Dr. Paul Conley, principal, Paladin Capital Group.

“This funding will allow Luminus to fully execute its operating plan to achieve profitable growth. Luminus PhlatLight LEDs uniquely enable new technologies in a broad spectrum of applications. Their management team is highly focused on supporting their existing customers and enabling new markets,” said Lee Barbieri, managing partner, Stata Venture Partners. 

Luminus won a 2009 Wall Street Journal Innovation Award and a 2009 LightFair Technical Innovation Award for its SST-90-W PhlatLight LED. It was named a 2009 GoingGreen Top 50 Private Company and the 2009 Small Business of the Year by Enterprise Bank. Luminus won the 2008 Gold Award from the Society of Information Display (SID), a Silver Award from SID in 2007 and a 2008 SBANE Innovation Award. The company’s founder and CTO Alexei Erchak was named a 2008 All-Star by Mass High Tech.