D.light Raises $5.5M for Solar-Powered LED Lights

Selling solar-powered LED lights to the consumer that spends just $2 a day: that’s the goal of startup d.light, which we profiled back in mid-2008. Back then the company, born out of an idea from young entrepreneurs at Stanford, had been planning on ramping up production to mass produce its products, and recently the now Hong Kong-based company took a step in that direction, and raised a modest $5.5 million, according to a filing.

In many regions of India and Africa that are not connected to the power grid, kerosene lanterns provide much of the lighting. Problem is, kerosene lanterns can be unsafe, cause respiratory problems, are generally pretty dim and are a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. D.light President Ned Tozun explained to me in 2008 that, while no one would argue replacing kerosene lanterns is a bad idea, technologies such as LEDs and solar panels have just started to become cost-effective replacements, and D.light is a trying to make a real dent in the kerosene lantern market.

As of March of this year, D.light says it has sold “hundreds of thousands” of solar lanterns to off-the grid households in developing countries and estimates it has impacted the lives of over 1 million people. The idea is to impact 10 million lives by 2010 and 50 million people by 2015, says D.light.

The company’s first solar-charging LED light is called the Nova which retails for around $12 to $25, and doubles as a cell phone charger. One hour of solar charge can provide one hour of LED light on the medium setting. There are four settings: low, medium and high — and the ultra-low “nightlight.” The company also sells the Solata, which is a solar-powered desklight, priced between $12 to $16, as well as the Kiran, which is a solar LED that’s been designed to look like a direct kerosene replacement and costs just $10.

At the end of the day, this is a business centered around driving down the costs of the product, and that means streamlining production and finding the lowest cost manufacturers around. This funding could help the company with a lot on scaling production. D.light previously raised $6 million back in November 2008, and is backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Garage Technology Ventures, Mahindra & Mahindra, Nexus India Capital, Acumen Fund, Gray Matters Capital and Michael Marks (the Chairman of Flextronics).

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