Laser Light Engines Secures $13 Million Series B Financing Round From Venture Capital

 

http://www.today3d.com/2010/09/laser-light-engines-secures-13-million.html

Laser Light Engines (LLE), a developer and manufacturer of ultra-high brightness, laser-driven light sources, announced today it has closed a $13 million Series B financing round from returning investors Braemar Energy Ventures and Harris & Harris Group Inc., (Nasdaq: TINY) and from current strategic partner IMAX Corporation, (Nasdaq: IMAX) (TSX: IMX) one of the world's leading entertainment technology companies.

LLE will use the Series B funds to accelerate expansion of its product development, engineering and marketing organizations. The company will also develop a custom version of its laser engine for use in IMAX digital projection systems, making IMAX the exclusive large format cinema user for up to three years. LLE will also provide outsourced research and development for IMAX, per the agreement previously announced in July, 2010.

The LLE light engine will provide two to five times the brightness level of a traditional Xenon bulb, making the superior light source ideal for 3D presentation which needs more light - all current 3D systems, other than IMAX, cut brightness up to 80% to split the picture into two separate images, one for each eye. Initially targeted for Digital Cinema projector use, LLE's light source will be available for other entertainment industry applications such as theme park attractions, Rental/Staging and digital signage.

"The explosion of 3D and Digital Cinema worldwide has projector manufacturers and, ultimately, exhibitors looking at our high-brightness light source to replace traditional Xenon arc lamps and solve the brightness issues associated with 3D presentation," said Doug Darrow, CEO, Laser Light Engines. "We will continue growing our business with the current round of financing now closed and look to add to our list of strategic and equity partners that include industry leaders such as Braemar, Harris & Harris and IMAX."

The patented LLE system produces red, green and blue primaries from the same laser. The unique technology offered by LLE eliminates the speckle artifact from all three laser primary colors. LLE has demonstrated fully despeckled 2K and 4K DCinema Standard Evaluation Material (StEM) and other cinema and non-cinema content with all five major brands of Digital Cinema and Large Venue projectors.

"Part of the IMAX Experience® is to ensure the best picture quality possible on our largest screens," said Brian Bonnick, executive vice president of technology, IMAX. "Laser Light Engines' technology will not only enable the highest brightness large format digital 3D presentation in the world, but also drive additional image quality advances."

Laser Light Engines will use the proceeds of this round of financing to commercialize its RGB (Red/Green/Blue) laser technology, dramatically reducing operating costs for movie theater owners for a potential per screen savings of $10,000 a year by eliminating the need to replace expensive Xenon arc lamps (projector bulbs) and reducing electricity use as much as 50%.

LLE's solid-state RGB laser solution can deliver higher brightness than lamps because all of the laser light comes from narrow beams; virtually all of the laser power gets to the projector chips. In contrast, less than 7% of the output of a Xenon lamp reaches the screen. The LLE system provides full brightness over the lifetime of the projector unlike Xenon lamps that decline in output over time