LightSail Energy (2008–2018) was an American

compressed air energy storage Compressed-air energy storage (CAES) is a way to store energy for later use using compressed air. At a utility scale, energy generated during periods of low demand can be released during peak load periods.Wild, Matthew, LWind Drives Growing Use ...

technology startup. The company shut down in 2018, failing to produce a product. The unused tanks were sold away to

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

companies in 2016.

Projects

A method of spraying the air with water droplets was proposed by LightSail to increase the efficiency of compressed air tanks. The company initially aimed to power an urban scooter. It later shifted its aim to fitting a compressed air-powered generator inside a standard

shipping container A shipping container is a container with strength suitable to withstand shipment, storage, and handling. Shipping containers range from large reusable steel boxes used for intermodal shipments to the ubiquitous corrugated boxes. In the context of ...

. In 2014, the company received funding from

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

for a

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...

project. This project did not come to fruition, costing the province $2M

Canadian dollars The Canadian dollar ( symbol: $; code: CAD; french: dollar canadien) is the currency of Canada. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, there is no standard disambiguating form, but the abbreviation Can$ is often suggested by notable style ...

. Starting in 2016, its remaining tanks were repurposed and sold off to the

industry.

Funding

Investors in LightSail include

Khosla Ventures Khosla Ventures is an American venture capital firm founded by Vinod Khosla, focused on early-stage companies in the Internet, computing, mobile, financial services, agriculture, healthcare and clean technology sectors. Some of its most successfu ...

Peter Thiel Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Fac ...

, Microsoft founder

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

Innovacorp Innovacorp is a Nova Scotia crown corporation managing an early-stage venture capital fund. The organization was established under Nova Scotia’s Innovation Corporation Act, 1994–95, c. 5, s. 1. Its goal is to help early stage Nova Scotia comp ...

, and oil supermajor

Total S.A. TotalEnergies SE is a French multinational integrated energy and petroleum company founded in 1924 and one of the seven supermajor oil companies. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and ...

In 2012, LightSail D-round founding rose 37.5 millions US$. It reached 55 employees in late 2014. By February 2016, LightSail had raised about $70 million in

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

investment. In December 2017, the company ran out of money. It cut the workforce down to 15 as it entered "hibernation". In March 2018, the company shut down. An investor cited

Lithium-ion batteries A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery which uses the reversible reduction of lithium ions to store energy. It is the predominant battery type used in portable consumer electronics and electric vehicles. It also se ...

as the reason for LightSail's commercial failure. Media specializing in startups and renewable energy have described the company as mismanaged. https://www.businessofbusiness.com/articles/startup-founders-fraud-theranos-wework-nikola/

References

External links

LightSail website
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190401232345/http://lightsail.com/ , date=2019-04-01 Privately held companies of the United States 2008 establishments in California