A Chicago-based tech company that creates low-power LED lighting for display screens has raised a new round of venture capital funding to help it grow.
FLEx Lighting, founded by CEO Mike Casper, announced Wednesday that is has raised $9 million in a Series B funding round led by the Energy Foundry, with participation from SABIC Ventures and Bascom Ventures.
In 2014, FLEx Lighting raised a $5.5 million Series A round, and Casper says FLEx Lighting now has more than $18 million in total funding.
The tech company makes what it describes as the “world’s thinnest light source,” providing LED lighting for display screens. The tech company has 28 patents for its product, which is power-efficient and sunlight-readable.
“The big value we provide is that we cut the power consumption by over 7x than what’s been used for decades,” Casper said.
FLEx Lighting originally launched in 2004, but it didn’t commercialize its product until two years ago.
“We purposely stayed under the radar for some time because we really wanted to ensure that the technology we developed was well protected,” Casper said.
Right now, FLEx Lighting is mainly selling its product to liquid-crystal display vendors in Asia and other device makers that create equipment for the industrial sector, such as hand-held metering and GPS-tracking devices.
Casper wouldn’t disclose revenue or how many products the company has sold, but said the new financing will help FLEx Lighting expand into more consumer electronic markets by producing screens for laptops and tablets. The funding will also help the company expand its distribution channels around the world, and hire more people across its sales, marketing and engineering departments.
"Over the next few years, we're not only looking to grow our display business, but also grow into a couple new markets," Casper said. "In addition to that, [building] out our own manufacturing facility is something we're considering."
FLEx Lighting currently employs 20 people in its River North offices, and has 19 sales offices across North America and Asia.
"FLEx is delivering energy innovation to the electronics industry under an all new paradigm,” said Sara Chamberlain, the managing director of the Energy Foundry, in a statement. "We are excited by the inflection point this technology represents, and we are thrilled to support this exceptional team in their next phase of growth."
