Why We Invested in LightGuide

G2 Venture Partners
G2 Insights
Published in
3 min readJul 7, 2021

G2 Venture Partners invests in technologies digitizing traditional industries to make them more efficient.

Manufacturing and distribution are two industries core to this transition.

Companies in these industries operate complex facilities in which human operators complete discrete tasks. These tasks must be completed quickly, but also accurately, as these tasks often have a high cost of failure. For example, imagine assembling a battery bay for an electric vehicle — this is a task that includes hundreds of steps. The operator must complete each bay in under ten minutes, but if they misplace one screw on step 61, a $75,000 car may not run — or worse, it may run incorrectly and injure someone.

Speed plus quality — this is the challenge of the industrial environment. And, despite the complexity and value of these processes, these tasks are still largely undigitized. Most often operators are relying on a list of printed instructions, repeatedly checking the list and then executing the corresponding step. When doing this work for hours every day, even the most skilled operators will make costly mistakes.

LightGuide helps manufacturers, distributors, and other customers solve this problem. LightGuide provides a projected augmented reality (AR) work station, in which instructions and directions are projected directly onto the work surface. Then, using cameras and computer vision analytics, LightGuide’s system can confirm that each step is completed correctly before the operator moves on to the next step. This allows the operator to complete their task without repeatedly checking a list of instructions.

By providing guidance plus confirmation, LightGuide’s solution provides not just speed, and not just quality, but both.

Check out LightGuide being used to assemble a Tesla battery bay here!

As we talked to manufacturers, we repeatedly heard enthusiastic reviews about the value of LightGuide’s solutions. Managers saw significant reductions in both errors and the cycle time of processes. Importantly, the operators also appreciated the system — it is intuitive to use and makes their jobs easier.

LightGuide is the leading provider of projected industrial AR in the market today — a fact supported by their impressive customer list, covering the leading companies in automotive, aerospace, controls, distribution, and a variety of other markets. Over the past few years, we have reviewed companies in this space with strong technology, but who have not yet been able to generate significant commercial traction. Earning the “right to sell” in industrial environments is difficult — industrial customers have exactingly high standards for the quality, reliability, and redundancy of solutions they deploy. Over the last 10 years, Paul and his team have earned this trust through an unfailing commitment to their customers.

We look forward to supporting LightGuide on their next phase of growth. We believe that LightGuide’s markets are in the midst of an inflection point, as powerful macro trends such as the electrification of vehicles and growth of e-commerce create challenges which LightGuide is well-suited to solve.

LightGuide is hiring to support this growth — check out their careers page here!

Press release: https://lightguidesys.com/lightguide-inc-raises-15m-to-accelerate-the-growth-of-their-digital-workflow-instruction-platform/

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Published in G2 Insights

G2 Venture Partners is a venture and growth capital firm investing in transformative technology companies at their inflection points to build a sustainable future. | www.g2venturepartners.com

Written by G2 Venture Partners

We invest in transformative technology companies at their inflection points to build a sustainable future.

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