VentureBeat

BridgeLux has secured a hefty $40 million round to use for product development and expansion, despite facing ongoing patent litigation from giant LED maker Cree.

BridgeLux, like Cree, makes the chip that is the light-emitting part of LEDs, which it then sells to other firms. The company’s chips are predominantly in electronics and automotive applications, but are also being delivered for use in general lighting for homes and businesses.

The funding is notable because it’s one of the larger LED investments to date. BridgeLux is one of a generation of startups that is working toward the point, likely only a couple years off now, that LED lighting becomes widespread in the consumer lighting market.

In the United States alone, that market is estimated to be worth $1 billion by 2011, growing at about 37 percent each year. Other segments of the LED market will also grow significantly, if not quite as quickly. Adoption should be driven by the higher efficiency, reliability and safety of LEDs over other forms of lighting.

Some other LED companies that have taken funding within the last month including Illumitex, with $5.25 million; Optoelectronix, which took $6 million; and Luminus Devices, which grabbed a whopper round of $72 million in early March.

BridgeLux, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., also took $23 million last August; its total funding is now at $71 million. The lead investor for this round was VentureTech Alliance, which was joined by DCM, El Dorado Ventures, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Chrysalix Energy and Harris & Harris Group.

San Jose-based FusionOne has raised $6 million in a Series A-1 preferred stock round for its mobile content backup services.

The company was founded a decade ago to create applications and services for mobile device users.

It started out with a synchronization technology platform. It allowed users to securely sync files such as e-mail, calendar, browser settings and music between their computers and mobile phones. In 2001, it added wireless support and has helped the industry create a standard for mobile synchronization. The next year it created the MightyPhone service for automatic mobile contact updating.

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CrossLoop, a company that lets two people easily share their desktops while working in different locations, has raised $3 million in a first round of capital.

We’ve covered CrossLoop before (see our coverage). This is great for giving tutorials, for example. CrossLoop lets you reach virtually into your student’s screen, even though they’re working miles away from you, and control their cursor, open their files, and do anything they can do on their own computer. That’s all fine if they trust you. It’s scary for them, though, if they don’t, but then CrossLoop gives them a dashboard that lets them shut down your access at any time.

The challenge for CrossLoop is to stay above the noise created by the multitude of companies (see one list here) offering online Web conferencing tools, some of them with very similar features.

Yugma, for example, offers a service that lets people take over each other’s screens. However, Yugma’s free version doesn’t offer this. You have to pay $10 a month, but with this comes several other features, including planning online meetings, recording sessions, and highlighting features. Only one of the two people communicating needs to buy Yugma’s software, since they can connect with someone who has the free version, and can manage the controls from their end. Minneapolis, Minnesota’s Yugma has about $2.5 million in angel funding. Both Yugma and Crossloop let you transfer files too. They both require downloads.

A few months ago, we heard that eBay’s Skype was negotiating a partnership with Yugma, because Skype’s own feature, called Unyte, doesn’t support Linux/Mac like Yugma does. Skype wouldn’t comment. Otherwise, Unyte offers similar features to Crossloop and Yugma. Skype also offers something called Convenos, but like many other competing products, it offers Web-based collaboration and so doesn’t allow access to desktop.

Back to CrossLoop. It’s hard to tell how the company will make money, since the basic version is free. For now, chief executive Lisa Alderson says the company is focused on getting users, and that it’s too early to talk about the company’s revenue plans. CrossLoop’s advantage is that it’s interface is very easy to understand.

Since launching last year, more than 300,000 people have used the software, she said (Yugma reports a similar number of users, though for both companies the number of “active” users is significantly lower). A paid version of Crossloop lets you manage a history of your sessions on your desktop.

The funding comes from El Dorado Ventures. CrossLoop is based in Pacific Grove, Calif.

A demo of how CrossLoop works is below (RSS readers won’t be able to see it).

BridgeLux, maker of chips for “light emitting diodes” that are environmentally cleaner lighting sources than standard lightbulbs, has raised a $23 million third round of funding, according to VentureWire (subscription required).

It joins the rush of other LED companies, including D.lightdesign (coverage), Quanlight (coverage), Intematix (raised $25 million from DFJ and Crosslink), Group IV Semiconductor ($8.2M from Khosla Ventures and BDC Capital). Yet another company, publicly traded Cree, has sued BridgeLux for patent infringement.

The BridgeLux round was led by new investor Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, and included DCM, El Dorado Ventures, Harris & Harris Group. New investor VantagePoint Venture Partners also participated. It adds to the $8 million already raised by the company. The company’s LED chips provide light in devices such as mobile phones, camera flashes and automobiles.

Meanwhile, Ottawa-based Group IV also raised another round from Garage Technology Ventures Canada, Applied Materials and existing backers.

Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. estimates that the market for LEDs used for illumination and display will grow to $4 billion in 2001 from less than $1 billion in revenue last year, VentureWire noted.