Friday, January 30, 2009

Kaai Gets $5M

A stealthy Goleta-based startup, Kaai, which is focused on LED technology, has quietly raised $5M in funding, according to both regulatory filings and recent numbers in the PricewaterhouseCoopers/NVCA Moneytree report. No details of the funding have been released, however, the startup was founded by Shuji Nakamura and Stephen DenBaars, key pioneers of LED technology. Nakamura is the inventory of the blue LED, and DenBaars is a professor a the University of California Santa Barbara. No details on the source of the funding have been disclosed, however, Kaai is a portfolio firm of Khosla Ventures, and Khosla's Ford Tamer is on Kaai's board of directors. According to regulatory filings, the funding occurred in the late October timeframe, and was most likely a follow on round to Khosla's initial involvement in the company, which surfaced in February.

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