smart homesGraveyard archive2015-2024

Brilliant

Brilliant was a San Mateo startup that replaced ordinary light switches with in-wall touchscreen control panels meant to serve as a built-in smart-home hub. After raising roughly $61M from investors including Next47, Celesta Capital, August Capital and Resideo, it ran out of cash in May 2024, laid off its staff and pulled products from sale. Its assets were bought out of distress in August 2024 and relaunched as Brilliant NextGen; the original venture-backed company ceased to exist.

Years active

2015-2024

Total raised

$71M

Peak headcount

51-200

A control panel for the connected home

Founded in 2015 by Aaron Emigh, Steven Stanek and Jeremy Hiatt, Brilliant set out to solve the smart-home fragmentation problem with hardware rather than another app. Its flagship product replaced one to four standard light switches with an in-wall touchscreen that dimmed lights, ran scenes, offered a room-to-room video intercom, and bundled both Alexa and Google Assistant. It integrated with Sonos, smart locks, thermostats and cameras, positioning the panel as a wall-mounted command center so the household never needed a phone.

Venture money and a pivot to builders

Brilliant raised a $21M Series A in 2017 and a $40M Series B in August 2021 led by Next47 and Celesta Capital, with strategic backing from Honeywell spinout Resideo, bringing disclosed funding to about $61M. As the retrofit consumer market proved slow, the company increasingly chased homebuilders, multifamily developers and property managers, integrating with partners such as ButterflyMX to land its panels as a built-in amenity in new construction and apartment buildings.

Out of cash, then out of business

In May 2024 Brilliant told customers it had run out of money after failing to close a new funding round. It laid off essentially its entire staff, shut its support center and stopped selling its switches and panels, leaving owners worried their cloud-dependent devices would go dark. On August 28, 2024 Almeida Strategic Investments, partnering with David Blum's Cullinan Holdings, acquired Brilliant's assets out of distress and relaunched the business as Brilliant NextGen, refocused on professional builders and property management. The original venture-backed Brilliant entity was wound down.

What worked, what broke

What worked

Built a polished, genuinely novel product — an in-wall touchscreen that replaced light switches and acted as a built-in smart-home hub with a video intercom.
Bundled both Alexa and Google Assistant plus broad third-party integrations (Sonos, locks, thermostats, cameras) into a single wall-mounted panel.
Raised roughly $61M across a 2017 Series A and a 2021 Series B, drawing in strategic backer Resideo alongside venture investors.
Pivoted into the homebuilder and multifamily channel, landing its panels as a built-in amenity in new-construction and apartment projects.
Survived as a brand: its assets were bought and relaunched as Brilliant NextGen rather than disappearing entirely.

What broke

Premium in-wall panels were expensive to make and install, keeping the retrofit consumer market too small to reach profitable scale.
The smart-home category grew slower than expected and never delivered the mass adoption the hardware economics required.
Venture investors broadly retreated from consumer smart-home hardware, leaving Brilliant unable to close a follow-on round in 2024.
The late pivot to homebuilders and multifamily was a longer, lower-margin sales cycle that did not generate cash fast enough to outrun the burn.
Heavy reliance on cloud services meant a cash crunch immediately threatened to brick the installed base, undermining customer trust during the wind-down.

Sources

Obituary authored Jun 30, 2026 via Sonnet 4.5 + web_search.