Danish entrepreneurs attract $2M investment and contract for 50,000+ cutting-edge power converters
In The News
10 Sep 2015
In January, they won the Danish Tech Challenge and $75K prize. In May, they won the EIT Venture Award and the Nordic Cleantech Open. Now, Climate-KIC start-up Nordic Power Converters steps it up with an investment from Copenhagen-based SEED Capital and a line of prominent business angels.
Further, they have partnered with HeSaLight to supply minimum 50,000 premium power converters for LED lighting. Nordic Power Converters’ vision is to revolutionize the power converter market, where the technology has only seen incremental innovation over the previous 30 years.
The first application of their power supply will be in LED lighting products. LED lights can last quite long, but the complete products often fail sooner than expected because of the limited lifetime of the power converter.
Further, the size of the power converter negatively affects the aesthetics and design potential of LED products. Nordic Power Converters has developed a power converter that solves these exact challenges.
Their power converter doubles the lifetime, is five times smaller and reduces production costs considerably compared to existing products. Nordic Power Converters’ goal is to set the new standard for LED power converters (LED drivers), a market that is expected to reach $9 billion in 2019.
“With the investment we are able to accelerate and deliver innovative power converters to manufacturers of LED products across the globe. The next challenge is to attract talented people and develop the team to get us efficiently on the market and subsequently make us one of the world’s leading suppliers of LED power converters,” says CEO and co-founder Mickey Madsen.
Strong investor alliance
The investment in Nordic Power Converters is made in syndication between ten business angels and the venture capital firm SEED Capital. CCO and co-founder Regnar Paaske says that the team at Nordic Power Converters is very excited about the investor composition and that great emphasis has been put on attracting committed investors with relevant experience.
“I have followed the project over a couple of years and the core technology is now developed and demonstrated, the business model established and the team assembled. There is a strategy to get the products to the end-user, via partnerships, in the near future. Therefore, I believe the time is right to get this venture off the ground. Nordic Power Converters is a textbook example on how to bring research from idea to commercialization through entrepreneurial Ph.D. students, who are able to attract experienced commercial forces,” says Investment Manager in SEED Capital, Richard Breiter.
One of the business angels is Jørgen Bardenfleth, who is known to be a technology and innovation enthusiast. He has worked with several technology companies in Silicon Valley in the 1980’s, has been CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Microsoft in Denmark, and has held board positions in startups such as IPTronics and TheEyeTribe.
“Nordic Power Converters has the potential to be a game-changer and alter the way we use power converters in the future. The team has the talent and the ambition to go far. Therefore, I have invested in the venture and look forward to contributing actively to the journey we are embarking on,“ says Jørgen Bardenfleth.
Among the business angels are also Eivind Johansen, who was previously CTO at Giga, which was acquired by Intel for $ 1.25B, and US cleantech investor Greg Moga. Nordic Power Converters are open to further investors joining their journey at a later stage.
Ambitious partnership
HeSaLight is a Danish based LED lighting company with very high growth inside and outside of Europe. HeSaLight has observed Nordic Power Converters for more than a year in its dedication to provide better LED solutions and products to their users, and has now agreed to buy minimum 50,000 power converters from Nordic Power Converters.
“With premium LED drivers from Nordic Power Converters, HeSaLight will provide LED lighting products that significantly lower the cost of ownership for our customers,” says HeSaLight COO Martin Nielsen. “Further, the reduced form factor of the LED driver will enable new attractive designs of our LED products.”
Nordic Power Converters has selected HeSaLight as its first large customer due to their innovative market approach, rapidly growing business and their strategic and agile management. Both parties expect to continue strengthening their relationship to ensure better power converters and LED lights to a global market.
About Nordic Power Converters
Nordic Power Converters was founded in the summer of 2014 as a spinout from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) with a technology platform developed during the previous five years. Their power converters can be used in a number of products like LED lights, laptop chargers and power supplies integrated in screens and entertainment equipment.
In the past three years, the founders of Nordic Power Converters have worked towards commercializing the technology and has chosen first to focus on the LED market and later to address other markets. The venture has won a long line of awards and recognitions. The team will expand significantly and is looking for agile team players with durable competencies ready for an exciting journey.
The team has doubled in size in the first half of 2015 to 8 full time employees and seeks to repeat this in the second half of 2015, and again in 2016. Currently, they have 4 active job openings.
