Swedish nanowire LED company GLO AB closes $25M round, opens California engineering center

Lund, Sweden--Nanowire-based light-emitting diode (LED) developer GLO AB announced the closing of an approximately $25 million dollar investment round and establishment of a California-based engineering center to supplement its current efforts in Sweden and Denmark. The Company also announced appointment of Fariba Danesh as its CEO.

G. Russell Mortenson, GLO's executive chairman, said, "We are very pleased to welcome Wellington Partners as a significant new lead investor in this round." Current investors joining in the round in GLO include funds advised by venture capital firms Provider Venture Partners of Stockholm, Hafslund Venture, Agder Energi Venture, and Teknoinvest of Oslo, and VantagePoint Venture Partners of San Bruno, CA, all joined by LU Innovation together with LUAB, the investment arm of Lund University (Sweden), as major owners, along with the founders and employees of GLO. "We are excited to join GLO for the next step in its development--taking the technology to production," said Bart Markus, Wellington General Partner.

In tandem, the Company announced that Fariba Danesh is its newly appointed CEO of both GLO AB and its wholly owned US subsidiary, GLO-USA, Inc. Danesh most recently served as a senior VP & GM of Avago Technologies (NASDAQ: AVGO) where her responsibilities included LEDs and laser devices. During her career, she also served as executive VP of Maxtor Corporation, COO of Finisar Corporation, CEO of Genoa Corporation, and VP of Seagate Technology.

"We welcome Ms. Danesh to the senior leadership role at GLO," said Mortenson. "Her deep experience in III-V semiconductors and high-volume global production and business environments will be very helpful to GLO in its next stage of development." Bo Pedersen will initially continue with GLO as deputy managing director supervising the Company’s newly-expanded activities in Europe, while Danesh will be responsible for overall Company supervision and strategy globally as well as direct supervision over the newly established Silicon Valley (US) efforts.

GLO develops nanowire-based LEDs at levels of brightness suitable for general illumination applications and with performance equal to or better than current state-of-the-art planar chips, yet at lower cost by using readily available, low-cost and large area silicon substrates with mass-production-friendly technologies.

Founded in September 2005 and on the Web at www.glo.se, GLO is a technology spin-out from the Nanometer Structure Consortium ("nmC") at Lund University and is focused on commercialization in the field of LEDs for general illumination. GLO controls a significant portfolio of patents and patent applications covering relevant innovations made by the Lund team and by GLO itself. The company will continue to enjoy a close working relationship with nmC and will have access under contract to relevant labs and intellectual property developed there.

SOURCE:LEDs Magazine; www.ledsmagazine.com/products/26993

Posted by:Gail Overton

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