Greentech Media's Top Ten Startups

Luminus Devices

While DIY energy efficiency is considered the easiest way of reducing our reliance on fossil-fuel powered electricity, pulling the plug on DVD players and switching off computers at night are hardly enough to get the average consumer excited about saving the planet. Instead, energy efficiency needs to be backed up by crowd-pleasing technologies that make our lives (and our TVs) brighter. Luminus Devices accomplishes this with a line of solid state lighting technologies that suck even less power than the most efficient CFL bulbs or LCD flat panels.

The Billerica, MA-based company’s PhlatLights are multiple-use, small point light sources based on photonic lattices that extract and direct light from the LED. This means TVs equipped with PhlatLight bulbs turn on faster, and produce sharper images and brighter colors than any other lamp-based TV. But how does this benefit anyone other than Al Gore fanboys straining to see the big guy’s Keynote presentations from An Inconvenient Truth on their Samsung HL-T56892 56 inch 1080p high-def rear projector? Well, when measured against plasma and LCD flat panels on same-size TVs, PhlatLights routinely draw 50 percent to 75 percent less energy. So, whether you’re searching for Mark Wahlberg’s third nipple appearance in Shooter or blissing out to sea turtles on Blue Planet, Luminus Devices helps you feel a little less guilty about destroying our future.

Investors seem to think so too. The company recently raised $72 million in a D round led by Braemer Energy Ventures, with help from CMEA Ventures and the Paladin Capital Group. Big D rounds usually make us a little apprehensive, though the solid state lighting market isn’t exactly popping off. Not just yet anyway. The company has also landed a slew of awards, 11 patents, and some big name partners like Samsung, LG, and Toyota.