A straight path to success with the KPT: Optimo Light

Optimo Light is a technology start-up set up in 2016. OptiMo technology is a breakthrough: it changes the thinking about lighting that is to become an unnoticeable companion in the everyday life of every human being, at the same time offering significant savings and making lighting more comfortable.

The company with 100% Polish capital has had a clear goal set since its first days. It is a proprietary patented idea for automation of lighting in commercial buildings, whose main element is the OptiMo controller, called the heart and brain of the solution. The company spun off a subsidiary, Lab Light, for R&D development, to provide research and development functions for Optimo Light.

Lab Light and Optimo Light together run research and development works on development of conditions that would make worksites not only economical but also ergonomic, working on the border between psychology of labour and electronic technologies.

By dynamic measurement of light intensity, the system precisely adjusts the amount of emitted light to user’s needs, offering optimum comfort for work while limiting energy consumption to the bare minimum.

KPT ScaleUp for the start

The company started in 2016 as Optical Electronics and participated in the second round of KPT ScaleUp accelerator under that name.

The solution that the start-up offered quickly gained the interest of experts from ES-SYSTEM, a giant in the lighting market. The innovative idea was to set up a luminaire that would exploit as much natural light as possible, and automatically complement it with an optimum amount of artificial light. The potential was also noted by Budimex, who organised tests of the solution that the start-up presented. All the three companies cooperated smoothly for six months.

This is how the CEO of Optimo Light recalls the first acceleration:

“The KPT environment makes it possible to win key partners necessary for the first steps of the marathon you embark on. Having come out of the phase of the first uncertain steps, Optimo Light first thanks the KPT ScaleUp for support, and suggests that all people who run smart start-ups should participate in the following edition.”

The success machine has been set in motion

In 2017 the company won the bid for providing lighting for the Złote Tarasy shopping malls in Warsaw, which was a milestone for the intensely developing enterprise.

In December 2019, the seed fund of the Kraków Technology Park (KPT) took interest in the company. That resulted in an investment into Lab Light, which increased the number of companies in the fund’s portfolio to 25.

“Our support goes beyond just capital, it is also specialist knowledge and know-how, and business consulting for companies in our portfolio. It is important to understand properly the needs and requirements that a developing company faces, this is the most important stage of cooperation”, commented Mateusz Cybula, board member of the KPT Seed Fund.

“The readiness to bring together potentials in the dense ecosystem of the Kraków Technology Park, which comprises both beginner start-ups from the Technology Incubator and large companies with traditions is ever more visible. Gathering businesses with innovative approach in a single location every so often generates new examples of interesting cooperation”, the CEO of Optimo Light summed up.

A breakthrough in the lighting sector

The dynamic development of the company made it an object of interest Innoventure Fund that invested into Optimo Light. Thanks to this, the company was capable of launching further research over the system it had patented. That made it possible to develop the product and introduce new functionalities into luminaires.

“Currently, producers try to outmatch one another in functionalities that allow user interaction with lighting. OptiMo goes against the trend, starting from the assumption that, in its basic form, lighting should be fully automated, and require no interaction with the user. This obviously does not mean that the OptiMo solution will not let you create light scenes, just the contrary. In this area, the system has actually no limitations, and the company communicates these options only for specific solutions, for example, the lighting of conference halls. We believe that the OptiMo technology will change the lighting sector for ever”, is how the president of Innoventure Fund, Marcin Bielówka, sees the situation.

Thanks to the cooperation with Innoventure, Lab Light has conducted further R&D works, and receives not only constant expert support in financial modelling and definition of business strategy but also aid in acquisition of capital for further development.

“Other than the financing that helped us introduce the new technology and start selling, the Kraków Technology Park also gave us support in expertise, and awareness of the market thanks to contacts with KPT partners: the Seed Fund and the Innoventure Fund. The experience and insight provided by the KPT let the company change its general sales policy and focus on technology for EOM sales. The aforementioned support helped the company develop the project technologically and provided the capital necessary for making Optimo Light real”, remarked Michał Zaród, CEO of Optimo Light.

Operation of the smart OptIMo module in various interior lighting conditions. In a dark room with dark furnishing, the module will increase intensity of light emission to compensate for the values obtained in light rooms.

It is worth adding that Optimo Light developed a new product for the crisis connected to the coronavirus pandemic. An innovative disinfector is being created for individual use. It is a box of 50×30×40cm that can be disassembled when not necessary. The disinfector uses Optimo Light lamps, and the first batch is undergoing implementation. Plans are to produce 10,000 pieces of the innovative disinfector, and its lifecycle is estimated at 200,000 hours.

This is a proof of the flexibility of the enterprise and its capacity to adjust even to times that are difficult for economy.