The Svase “Launch: Silicon Valley” featured 30 pre-launch startups with products worth a second look.
Here are three business ventures that rose to the top of the heap Tuesday by touting innovations in green-tech lighting, climate sensitive windows and portable music.
Lumiette's Rick Mintz displays the company;'s flat-panel lighting
Perhaps the most sexy was Sunnyvale-based Silicon Valley Global, maker of the portable speaker Tunebug. Tunebug is aimed at replacing the ear buds iPod owners wear while biking, skating or motorcycling.
“We vibrate the surface” of a helmet or table and create music by turning the digital signal from an MP3 device into an analog wave, says Richard Brown, founder.
That means a skateboarder’s helmet actually becomes a speaker and the table under a laptop becomes the amplifier for a business presentation when a Tunebug is placed on it.
Brown says the first version of the palm-sized device will be available this summer for $99.
Also shipping toward the end of summer is climate-sensitive window glass from LiveGlass International of Palo Alto. The LiveGlass product is targeted at commercial buildings and contains a layer of nano-sized plastic-based particles sandwiched between coatings of glass.
The tiny materials can be configured to let the warming rays of the morning sun pass through into the building, but to repel the hot afternoon heat to reduce air conditioning costs.
LiveGlass says the result can be a 10 percent savings in electricity costs and a 30 percent reduction in CO2 emissions.
The company hopes to raise venture funds.
With $3.2 million raised from investors including Oceanshore VC, Lumiette of Cupertino makes what it calls a highly efficient flat-panel light.
The light is made with fluorescent bulbs pressed flat and focused to shoot their light forward in an intense beam.
The system is 15 percent more efficient than regular fluorescents and well under an inch thick. The bulbs will last through almost seven years of continuous use.
“We’re more or less waiting for orders,” which are expected from lighting manufacturers, says Sales Director Rick Mintz.
