TECHNOLOGY

Startup Spotlight: Austin’s Moon Ultra aims to make mark with mobile lighting device

Hojun Choi, hchoi@statesman.com
Edward Madongorere, CEO of Austin-based gadget company Moon Ultra, speaks with another attendee at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. [Photo courtesy Moon Ultra]

Edward Madongorere landed in Austin about two years ago to attend the annual South by Southwest convention, not knowing that the city would be the future home of his company.

In 2017, Madongorere co-founded a company called Moon Ultra with with his friend Dishen Yang, and had been personally financing the company, which was then based in Boston.

Despite Boston’s reputation as a tech hub, Madongorere said, it was a tough location for a hardware gadget startup.

“Though there is a lot of excitement in tech and a lot of investments going on, but it really wasn’t in the consumer space,” Madongorere said.

In 2018, one of Madongorere’s friends recommended that he visit Austin and check out South by Southwest. When he flew into town, Madongorere said, he had barely left his plane before he called his wife to tell her that Austin felt right.

“I honestly can’t explain what made me have that conscious decision to move here,” Madongorere said. “It was really kind of gut intuition.”

Madongorere moved his company to Austin in October 2018. Last month, Moon Ultra debuted its first product, the Moon UltraLight, at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The Moon UltraLight was named one of the best 25 gadgets of 2020 at the show by Time magazine.

“We wanted to really create something that people could look back and say , that was a really well-executed beautifully designed product that was intuitive and really fit into a culture,” Madongorere said.

What they do:

Moon Ultra makes a device that functions as a portable flash for mobile devices. The device, which is priced at $49.99, is about the size of a cherry and clips onto a mobile phone or tablet.

The light on the gadget is adjustable, and Madongorere said it provides a more organic light than the flash functions that come with mobile devices.

Madongorere said what sets his product apart is its design. He added that the company’s focus on helping people capture their special moments has helped instill a passion-oriented culture in his company.

“We really did have a sense of confidence because we listened to our potential customers as we were building our product,” Madongorere said.

He said the company, which operates out of a WeWork space in north Austin, is looking to grow.

Madongorere said one of the strengths of his company is its diversity and its openness to understand the needs of different cultures.

“We’re so dynamic, different, and diverse; the makeup of our team is really what we see in our customers,” he said.

Investments:

Madongorere said the company is in the middle of raising seed money.

Though he declined to say how much money the company has raised to date, he said Moon Ultra has received support from Mark McClain, CEO of Austin-based SailPoint, as well as from Capital Factory, among others.

He said the launch of the company’s first gadget at the electronics show has also helped the sale of the Moon UltraLight. He said the company has sold hundreds of units, and has seen a greater number of orders since the electronics show.

“That came as a really great surprise; it didn’t even compute to us that something like that could happen,” Madongorere said. “For us, it was about showcasing our product and really putting out all the work that we had been working on.”

Biggest challenge:

Unlike a startup that deals with software, Madongorere said hardware startups run into more challenges when trying to make changes to its product.

As his company grows, Madongorere said, the company will focus on strengthening its supply chain and scaling his company. Because the manufacturing of the Moon UltraLight takes place overseas, Madongorere said the company can be affected by global politics.

“We don’t have control over certain things that can happen. In certain political climates, tariffs can make all the difference in what happens to our product,” Madongorere said.

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