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Peripherals - Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Lumus - Profile

HQ: Rehovot, Israel

Founded: 2000

Management: Chairman is Zvi Lapidot, who co-founded Obrot Systems in the semiconductor sector. Dr. Rami Aharoni is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Previously he was with Scanmaster Systems, manufacturer of instruments, transducers and inspection systems.

Investors: In January 2005, Lumus raised Series B, an undisclosed amount led by Motorola Ventures with Jerusalem Global Ventures.

Business Model: Lumus has several optical products all from the same source technology which involves projecting images into users eyes from small form-factor devices. One product is a head worn display which displays images generated by a computer or video source straight into the eye, while allowing the user to see with the other eye. Another product projects images from a cel phone onto flat surfaces. Lumus lists a number of applications from military and medical to entertainment. Lumus sells the technology to OEM partners.


Demos of Direct to Eye & Cel Phone to Wall

Dirt: On the one hand, Lumus does not appear at all ready to go to market. On the other, they just received an investment from Motorola which certainly has plans in mind to incorporate Lumus' technology into a product, which would get Lumus off the drawing board. At this point we like what competitor VKB is doing better (VKB just projects images onto surfaces) as we don't think most people will want to have Lumus' products project images straight into their eyes - unless they are the military and are doing what they are told - hoo-ra.