LightSense Promised the EIC Accelerator Tattoo Removal: The Record

LightSense Technologies told the European Union in 2018 that its laser would earn about €30 million in revenue by 2021 and about €800 million by 2030. The London company held Princeton University patents for removing tattoos with very short, low-energy laser pulses, and in the 5 June 2019 cut-off of the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2 it won a €2,112,337.50 grant to finish the device, prove it in a clinical study, get it approved and sell it, according to CORDIS. It did most of that. On 25 June 2026 it went into administration, and its business and assets, together with those of its London studio, were sold the same day.

The device reached the market. LightSense reported a CE certificate in May 2020 and opened its first treatment studio in central London in July 2020, according to its final EU report; the studio traded as NAAMA. The US Food and Drug Administration cleared its S2 Pigment Removal System on 14 December 2021 (510(k) K202848), and a New York studio opened on 6 September 2024, Highsnobiety reported. The parent company's last filed revenue figure is not public; the London studio company had turnover of £1,270,789 in 2024 and lost £1,109,883, according to the administrators' proposals for NAAMA Studios Ltd.

Where LightSense Stands Now

LightSense Technologies Ltd and NAAMA Studios Ltd both entered administration on 25 June 2026, with Emma Mifsud and Mark Nicholas Ranson of Opus Restructuring as joint administrators, according to Companies House. They were appointed by Rhythm Ventures Limited, a shareholder that had lent the group money against a debenture dated 1 August 2025, as the charges register shows. On the same day the administrators sold the business and assets of both companies in a pre-pack deal to Euraser UK Ltd, a company incorporated in London in June 2025 whose directors are Mark Andrew Evans and Christopher Joseph Vossen. The studio company was renamed NS Realisations 2026 Limited on 8 July 2026.

The administrators' statement of proposals, filed on 23 August 2026, sets out the price. Euraser offered £150,000 on completion and £250,000 of deferred consideration for both companies. The administrators put LightSense's own share at £29,005.50, made up mainly of £19,000 for the laser devices, £6,000 for IT equipment and £4,000 for the intellectual property, with 50 pence for goodwill and £1 each for the lease (payable later) and for an option to buy the shares of LightSense IP Ltd, LightSense Medical Ltd and LightSense Israel. Four employees moved to the buyer. The administrators expect to pay Rhythm Ventures around £4,000 and nothing to preferential or unsecured creditors.

The studio still trades. The NAAMA website now says that "NAAMA is part of the UNDO family" and advertises treatments "as often as every 6-12 weeks", whereas the company once advertised sessions "every two to three weeks" for its laser. Whether Euraser has kept using the LightSense laser, and how UNDO and Euraser are related, could not be verified.

The Technology: Low Energy, Very Short Pulses

Laser tattoo removal uses light energy to break ink into particles that the body then clears, and with mainstream lasers patients typically wait six to 12 weeks between sessions while the skin blisters, scabs and heals, as Highsnobiety describes it. LightSense's approach comes from the Princeton physicist Szymon Suckewer and the engineer Alexander Smits, whose patents describe breaking up pigment through "localized, multi-photon processing events" with low-energy pulses, so that less heat reaches the surrounding tissue. Both core US patents (US8187256 and US9247995) date from a June 2007 priority filing and are now assigned to LightSense IP Ltd; Google Patents records a security interest for the venture lender Kreos Capital VI from 2021, released in December 2025; the Companies House register shows a Kreos charge over LightSense Technologies created in December 2020 and satisfied on 31 July 2025.

The commercial claim was speed and comfort. NAAMA said its 800 nm laser broke ink into small fragments with lower energy and that sessions could be repeated "every two to three weeks", so tattoos could be cleared in "months, not years", SheerLuxe reported in July 2022. Highsnobiety repeated the two to three week figure in 2024. No peer-reviewed comparison with established picosecond lasers was found. A clinical study of the "S2 multi-wavelength laser" with 60 planned subjects, sponsored by LightSense Israel, started in Vilnius, Lithuania, in January 2019, but its registry entry was last updated in March 2019 and has no posted results.

What CLEAN SLATE Promised, and What the Record Shows

LightSense first took a €50,000 SME Instrument Phase 1 grant for a six-month feasibility study in 2018, when it planned to start with tattoo removal and forecast "~€30M in revenues by 2021 (~€800M by 2030)" at an average price of €2,850 per treatment, according to CORDIS. The Commission's list of 5 June 2019 winners names LightSense Technologies Ltd alone for CLEAN SLATE, with no partner companies. CORDIS dates the project from 15 June 2019 to 14 June 2021, though the grant was only signed on 19 May 2020. It cost €3,017,625, of which the EU paid €2,112,337.50. LightSense Israel Ltd took part as a linked third party and accounts for €1,167,740.55 of the EU money, more than the London coordinator's €944,596.95.

The objectives were narrow: finish product development and testing, gain regulatory approval through clinical studies and commercialise. The final report claims all of them "were successfully achieved": a clinical study that met its primary and secondary end points, IEC 60601 testing, a CE certificate in May 2020 and a pilot clinic opened in July 2020, with client retention "in excess of our target". The report does not give the study's results, revenue or client numbers.

1. Commercial laser systemDeliveredFDA cleared the S2 Pigment Removal System in December 2021.
2. Clinical studyPartly verifiedRegistered in Vilnius in 2019; no results published.
3. CE certificationCompany report onlyMay 2020, per CORDIS; no certificate found.
4. Pilot clinic and launchDeliveredLondon studio from July 2020, covered by the press from 2022.
5. €30M revenue by 2021 (Phase 1 forecast)MissedLondon studio turnover £1.27M in 2024.

Against the Phase 2 plan, CLEAN SLATE delivered, and on time: the reported CE marking and the clinic both came within the project period, and the FDA clearance six months after it. The gap is between the grant's objectives and the business case that won it. The 2018 forecast of €30 million by 2021 never came close.

Six Years of Studios and Losses

The private money arrived alongside the grant. CB Insights lists a $24.2 million Series A dated 2019 with OMERS Ventures, Alex Chesterman, Jeremy Coller, Ken Moelis and Taavet Hinrikus among the investors. The filed accounts show the share premium rising from £7.39 million at the end of 2018 to £17.39 million at the end of 2019, and to £24.32 million by 2023. The administrators' shareholder list includes OMERS Ventures Europe II, Lux Ventures V, FJ Labs, Future Positive Fund 1 and Alex Chesterman, with Rhythm Ventures holding the largest single block of 550,000 shares.

The cash went into a group that combined owning the technology with running its own studios. The administrators write that the subsidiaries "generated revenue" but the group "remained dependent on ongoing investment". In 2024 it failed to raise the equity it needed, existing shareholders provided a bridge round, and a restructuring began. NAAMA Studios Ltd became profitable in 2025, according to the administrators, but its profit could not carry the group, and the US business "was ultimately a costly investment and did not achieve the trading results anticipated". The board tried to sell the group as a going concern in 2025; the deal dragged on, Rhythm Ventures stopped lending in April 2026, and the sale became an asset sale out of administration.

The parent company's accounts end with £8,744,331 of debtors, mostly loans to its own subsidiaries. The administrators put the intercompany balance at £8,694,084 and expect no return from it, because most subsidiaries "do not generate revenue and/or are insolvent". Its staff fell from 16 in 2024 to 5 in 2025. In the director's statement of affairs, Rhythm Ventures is listed as a secured creditor for £4,380,000, while the administrators' narrative estimates its loan principal at £1.1 million; the proposals do not explain the difference.

Why Europe Should Care

Tattoo removal is a cosmetic service, not a strategic technology, and the grant's link to European priorities is thin. The closest policy connection is safety: the EU's Medical Device Regulation brings lasers used "for skin resurfacing, tattoo or hair removal" under medical-device rules in its Annex XVI, even when they have no medical purpose, with common specifications for such products applying from 22 June 2023, as Medical Device HQ summarises. A gentler tattoo laser fits that concern. But the project's economic footprint in the EU was small: the clinical study ran in Lithuania, more than half the EU contribution was booked by the Israeli affiliate, and the studios opened in London and New York.

The Verdict

LightSense, its administrators and Euraser UK have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.