Skylight, a West Hollywood-based company that develops interconnected digital photo frames, has nabbed $50 million through a loan with its partners Santa Monica-based lender SG Credit Partners and Wingspire Capital.
“This expanded financing represents more than just increased capital,” Chia Chung, the chief operating officer and chief financial officer at Skylight, said in a statement. “It’s building the foundation for a generational brand, which begins with resilient fundamentals and ample liquidity.”
SG Credit Partners, which previously gave Skylight a $20 million credit facility, brought on Wingspire Capital to support its new $50 million commitment.
Skylight said its product is similar to an operating system – except for families instead of computers. Its smart photo frames range from small photo frame versions to larger frames that look more like computer monitors. The frame syncs with multiple calendar systems, including Google, Apple and Outlook products, in an attempt to corral a busy family’s schedule in a singular, visual product. Unlike other similar flatscreen products, Skylight has extremely limited functioning – users can’t throw television shows on it like they would an iPad.
Single-slew applications growing in popularity
Though the limited function may seem like a negative, Skylight is part of a long slew of single-application technologies: the Kindle and other e-readers are extremely popular, and a new movement towards minimalist phones – which can call and text without the bells and whistles of a regular smartphone – has spawned several new phone companies.
Skylight was formed by students at Harvard Business School, who wanted to share photos with their families that lived far outside the school’s campus. The company launched in 2014, and it eventually evolved to add a calendar function. Over 9.3 million users have used Skylight products since the company’s inception.
The boost in funding will be funneled into inventory purchases as the company scales and develops new products that help families juggle home inventory, errands, after-school programs and work schedules. It’s a problem Silicon Valley is eager to tackle. In 2022, Palo Alto-based Yohana, a concierge personal assistant service for families, entered the Los Angeles market to tackle everything from finding a veterinarian to scheduling a plumber to planning a vacation.
