Cooledge Lighting

Market position

Caplight classifies Cooledge in Frontier & Industrial Tech with verticals in smart buildings, green building and construction tech, and lists PureEdge Lighting, Armstrong World Industries and Barrisol Normalu SAS as the closest comparables. Seedtable ranks Cooledge #9 of 28 tracked lighting startups with a score of 43. The company describes itself as a global leader in immersive illumination and the industry leader in large-area backlighting systems.

Cooledge's stated points of difference are the combination of large-scale immersive illumination with meaningful acoustic (sound-absorbing) performance in a single product, and the delivery of light as a continuous surface rather than through conventional bulbs and metal fixtures. It highlights thin, lightweight, cuttable and heat-sink-free backlighting tiles that can be scaled and shaped to architectural forms, and, with SkyLine, the integration of general, accent, task and dynamic lighting plus a service channel for sensors, sprinklers, cameras and speakers within one ceiling system.

Technology

LED-based large-area backlighting. The core TILE platform is a modular, thin, lightweight, cuttable and flexible light sheet that requires no heat sink and can be paired with any diffusion material to create luminous surfaces; variants add IP65 exterior rating, tunable white, W+RGB color mixing and acoustically transparent construction that lets sound waves pass to backing absorption material. Systems support dimming, tunable color temperature, connected/interactive control interfaces, and design attributes such as high color rendering, flicker-free output and low glare.

Go-to-market

Sales run through a partner/representative network — lighting partners in North America and internationally, and separate acoustic partners — supported by an internal sales organization (SVP Sales North America, VP Sales EMEA, regional sales managers) and a project management/field services team. The company markets to the specification community with continuing education programs, case studies, test reports, acoustic calculators and reverberation demonstrations, and offers a QuickShip e-commerce channel for its LumiScapes line.

Architects, interior designers, lighting designers, acoustic consultants, building owners, contractors and sales representatives specifying lighting for commercial interiors, with installations spanning retail, corporate and institutional projects, including offices, venues and retail properties of global brands.

Geography

Headquarters at 110-13551 Commerce Parkway, Richmond, BC, Canada; a US mailing address in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. The company maintains lighting partner networks in North America and internationally plus acoustic partners, has a VP Sales for EMEA and an EMEA project manager, and its update sign-up form segments audiences across Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and North America. It states its products have been installed in thousands of environments worldwide.

History

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Richmond, British Columbia, Cooledge received a grant in February 2010, followed by a Series A in July 2010, a Series A extension in January 2013, a Series B in December 2014 and a Series C in July 2017, per Caplight, which lists total funding raised of $50.26M. The company accumulated industry recognition from 2013 onward (LFI Design Excellence 2013, BCTIA awards 2014 and 2015, multiple TILE product awards in 2016-2017, Deloitte Technology Fast 50 in 2016, Global Cleantech 100 in 2019). William J. Sims became CEO in 2016 and is credited with the expansion into turnkey specialty illumination solutions, W+RGB, acoustic lighting, tunable white products and luminaires. The company's site footer identifies Cooledge as an Aither Global Holdings company.