Highlights from Luminate Finals 2022

 

Luminate Finals 2022 big checksLast month, we announced the recipients of $2 million in follow-on funding at Luminate Finals 2022. Nearly 300 attendees joined us in person for the startup pitches and investment announcements, and hundreds more streamed the event from over 30 different countries.

Miss the show? Catch the recording here.

Lidrotec Named Company of the Year

Bochum, Germany-based Lidrotec scored top honors and $1 million at Luminate Finals 2022 for its wafer-dicing laser technology that promises to help address the global chip shortage. Lidrotec’s solution enables thinner cuts with a virtually 0% damage rate, providing significant cost savings and productivity increases for the semiconductor industry.

“Luminate provided us with a new network into the United States, along with contacts to suppliers and clients,” said Lidrotec CEO, Alexander Igelmann, in an interview with Photonics Media. “These vital connections will help us to meet our development milestones during the next two years, which include market validation for our novel laser technology.”

Lidrotec’s progress against these milestones began last month with the company’s establishment of a U.S. entity.

This year’s Outstanding Graduate Award and $500K in funding went to Custom Surgical, a medtech company from Munich, Germany that’s digitizing microscopes for earlier detection and diagnosis of eye pathologies. Custom Surgical also earned the most votes during Finals 2022 to take home the Audience Choice Award and $10,000.

Alertgy of Melbourne, FL secured the title of Distinguished Graduate and $250K for its wristband platform for non-invasive, on-demand blood glucose monitoring. Both MEETOPTICS and SCOUT received Honorable Achievement Awards and $125K in funding. MEETOPTICS of Barcelona is building an AI-driven platform that helps engineers and researchers in the optics and photonics industry access and compare products from trusted manufacturers. Alexandria, VA-based SCOUT is enabling a new era of space safety, mission assurance, and transparency with its revolutionary vision-based autonomy solutions.

You Could Win $1M in 2023

Accelerate your startup at Luminate - Apply by January 9If you have a startup with a solution that’s enabled by optics, photonics, or imaging (OPI), apply to Luminate. We award $3M in funding annually to companies developing emerging solutions in almost every industry, from anywhere in the world, and participation in the six-month accelerator program is primarily remote.

Apply today, or attend a free info session to learn more:

Portfolio Updates

Putting the infrared world in the palm of your hand. Congratulations to Stratio, Inc. on the release of BeyonSense, the world’s first Ge-based short-wave infrared (SWIR) camera. Capable of capturing images invisible to the naked eye, BeyonSense is 5x lighter, 10x less power-consuming, and 20x less expensive than current SWIR cameras, and it’s now available for purchase at BeyonSense.io.

Deal struck in Norway. Think Outside was acquired by Mitta Group. The cohort 3 company’s team of six employees have merged into Mitta Group, with senior personnel becoming Mitta Group partners.

Ready for investment. Circle Optics was named among the 2022 Pepperdine Graziadio Most Fundable Companies. More than 4,000 early-stage U.S. startups from across all 50 states vied for a spot on the list. Listen to a recent MARL Startup Studio podcast episode with Circle’s Founder, Zak Niazi, and COO, Ian Gauger on building a fundable company.

Outstanding leadership. Bounce Imaging’s VP of Operations, Lauren Baynes, was named to Buffalo Business First’s Annual 40 Under 40 list.

Fresh Startup Jobs

SCOUT is looking to hire a Mechanical Engineer and a Systems Engineer to join their Alexandria, VA team. (Pssst. Check out SCOUT’s store to rock their swag and support their mission.)

Have you visited the Luminate job board lately? We post new opportunities with our portfolio companies regularly.

See You Next Month!

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