LUND, Sweden & SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lund (Sweden) based nanowire semiconductor LED developer GLO AB today announced it has decided to appoint K. R. (Kaj) den Daas, as its new independent, non-executive chairman of the board, effective immediately.
GLO previously announced in September 2010 that it had opened an engineering center in Silicon Valley (California), had closed a major financing round of SEK 170 million (about USD 25 million) and hired Fariba Danesh as its Chief Executive Officer.
Mr. den Daas, as Chairman of Philips Lighting of North America and Executive Vice President of Philips Lighting BV until his retirement from Philips at the end of 2009, led Philips in building the largest lighting company in North America through both organic growth and acquisitions (such as Lumileds and Color Kinetics) with an emphasis on the emerging solid state (LED) lighting market. Prior executive assignments in Philips Lighting included stints as Chief Operating Officer of BG Lamps, the largest and most profitable business of Philips Lighting, as CEO Business Unit Lamps EMEA – including Lighting Components, CEO Business Unit Lamps Asia Pacific, Senior VP & General Manager Business Unit Luminaires Asia Pacific and VP & GM Philips Lighting Canada. He holds a Drs degree in Business Economics from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and is a member of the Illumination Engineering Society of North America and a former Governor of NEMA (the National Electrical Manufacturers Association). Mr. den Daas also serves on the boards of Hong Kong Stock Exchange listed NVC Lighting and NYSE listed Valmont Industries.
G. Russell Mortenson, GLO’s retiring Executive Chairman, said, “We are extremely pleased to welcome Dr. den Daas to GLO. He brings over thirty years of highly relevant commercial experience in the general lighting industry worldwide to GLO that will be very valuable to the Company as it transitions from an R&D phase to its mass production and commercial phases.” GLO’s CEO, Fariba Danesh, commented, “Kaj is a hugely accomplished and experienced executive in the general lighting industry, not only in North America but in Asia and in Europe as well. I look forward to working closely with him to accomplish our objectives to deliver novel, cost-effective, mass-market nanowire-based LED light sources to the emerging global solid state lighting markets.”
“GLO’s unique nanotechnology approach to LEDs has enormous potential to be a catalyst to help bring energy-saving and environmentally-friendly solid state lighting to the mass-market at affordable prices,” said den Daas. “I believe I can make a substantial contribution to GLO as it progresses and matures,” he concluded.
Current investors in GLO include funds advised by venture capital firms Provider Venture Partners of Stockholm, Hafslund Venture, Agder Energi Venture, and Teknoinvest of Oslo, VantagePoint Venture Partners of San Bruno, California, Wellington Partners of London & Munich, all joined by LU Innovation together with LUAB, the investment arm of Lund University (Sweden), as major owners, along with the founders and employees of GLO
GLO develops novel nanowire-based LEDs at levels of brightness suitable for general illumination applications and with performance equal to or better than current state-of-the-art planar chips, yet at simultaneously dramatically lower cost by using readily available, low-cost and large area silicon substrates with mass-production friendly technologies.
Founded in September 2005 and on the Web at www.glo.se, GLO is a technology spin-out from the Nanometer Structure Consortium (“nmC”) at Lund University (http://nano.lth.se) and is focused on commercialization in the field of light-emitting diodes for general illumination of the heterostructured nanowire technology research of Dr. Lars Samuelson, Professor of Solid State Physics and Head of nmC, and the world-class team at Lund University. GLO controls a significant portfolio of patents and patent applications covering relevant innovations made by the Lund team and by GLO. The company continues to enjoy a close working relationship with nmC and will have access under contract to relevant labs and intellectual property developed there, as well as its own labs and facilities in Sweden, Denmark and Silicon Valley.