Swiss HBLED Company Attracts 1st-Round Investors

GENEVA, Feb. 3 -- ACOL Technologies SA, a Geneva-based company developing new technologies for high-brightness light-emitting diodes (HBLEDs), has received 9 million euros in first-round funding from Amadeus Capital, Apax Partners and Mint Capital. The company's HBLEDs are used in public lighting, including road and rail signals, outdoor signage and general illumination.

ACOL Technologies was founded in 1998 by two Russian scientists and is a spinoff of Moscow-based Corvette Light, which provided research and development funding for new products and piloted them in the Russian automotive, rail and architectural lighting markets.

Corvette Light teamed with Jean-Charles Herpeux, a former European marketing director of US hard-disk manufacturer Quantum, to form ACOL. ACOL's sales, marketing and engineering activities are based in Geneva, and it has an R&D facility in Russia, led by co-founder Alexander Shisov. Its manufacturing will be outsourced.

ACOL said it has developed proprietary technologies that address a number of problems with HBLEDs, including cost, heat dissipation, lamp size, development cost and the difficulties with customization.

"ACOL's combined focus on thermal management and precision primary optics provides a unique and compelling offer to integrators of HBLEDs," said Herpeux, CEO of ACOL Technologies. "We now have the necessary funding to pursue our ambitious growth strategy, satisfy the strong market interest in our new products and bring an unmatched value to our OEM and distribution customers."

For more information, visit: www.acol.biz