Mobile lighting accessory company Moon Ultra raised $15 million in a series B funding round. Its two investors include three-time Grammy Award-winning producer L.A. Reid and Grammy Award-winning Nigerian artist Burna Boy.
Reid and Burna Boy become the company’s latest investors. Moon Ultra has attracted about 20 sports and entertainment stars who have invested in the electronics company’s innovative product — an external flash for mobile devices.
About Moon Ultra
The Austin, Texas-based company was founded in 2017 by CEO Edward Madongorere and Dishen ‘Dixon’ Yang.
Madongorere, who was born in Zimbabwe, wanted to capture moments with his autistic son, and his design for Moon Ultra‘s premiere product, the Moon UltraLight, easily enhances the way users take pictures and videos.
Many autistic people experience hypersensitivity to bright lights or certain light wavelengths, such as those from a camera flash. Moon UltraLight eliminates the flash.
Co-founder Dishen ‘Dixon’ Yang is an MIT and Harvard University graduate with experience in launching start-up companies. Before he founded Moon Ultra with Madongorere, Yang was developing Pilldrops.com, an application and an automated pill dispenser that makes it easy to count, sort, or remember which medication to take.
Best Inventions of 2020
In early December Moon Ultra raised $15 million in series B funding, partly from Reid and Burna Boy. Moon Ultra’s portable lighting device with controls to change brightness and tone has been called by Time Magazine one of the “Best Inventions of 2020.”
It was also recognized by Fast Company in its 2022 Innovation by Design Awards, and the Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) awarded Moon UltraLight its American Graphic Design Award in its Best of 10,000+ entries to enhance the way consumers take photos and videos.
The product, the latest one being the UltraLight 2, is a consumer device that illuminates the objects in front of one’s phone, making it possible in low-light settings to capture photos and video.
Reid and Burna Boy Were Impressed
Reid, who has a net worth of $300 million, has said Moon UltraLight is “a very cool and convenient tool designed to bring light to darker moments” and says, “this [is a] revolutionary lighting device.”
“Ed is a brilliant designer who is destined to make his mark amongst the world’s great innovators,” said Reid.
According to Burna Boy, Moon UltraLight comes in handy to make behind-the-scenes content at his concerts. He also said wanted to show children such a product could be engineered by African entrepreneurs.
“The Moon products are elegant and sophisticated, technical yet straightforward. Knowing such an innovation was brought about by my fellow African brother is unique and inspirational. More importantly, showing the next generation of African children that something like this is possible, is what innovations like these are all about,” said Burna, whose net worth is estimated at $17 million.
