Introduction
Walk into any college dorm, studio apartment, or first home and you'll spot them — cheap LED strips peeling off the wall, casting a garish glow from exposed channels. Jack Richter saw this everywhere his freshman year at the University of Colorado Boulder, and he couldn't stop thinking about a better way.
The Origin Story
It started with a side hustle. While his peers were slapping LED strips on their walls and calling it a day, Richter was sourcing aluminum L-channels from Home Depot and mounting them for friends — a low-tech solution to a problem nobody else seemed bothered by. But the raw aluminum looked unfinished, the process was a hassle, and nothing on the market offered a complete, all-in-one answer.
"Diffusing" a strip was as far as most products went. Full concealment — what architects call cove lighting — was reserved for high-end commercial builds and renovation budgets most people will never have.
"There had to be a middle ground between a bare LED strip and a $10,000 architectural cove. That gap is where Luma Cove lives."
Building the Knowledge Base
After graduating, Richter didn't go straight to manufacturing. He went to work for architectural lighting design firms — learning the language of the industry, the physics of light as a material, and the standards that separate amateur installs from spaces that feel genuinely considered.
From 2021 to 2024, between consulting work and saving capital, he iterated through prototype after prototype, quietly refining a product that didn't yet have a name.
The Launch & What Happened Next
Luma Cove launched in January 2025. The response surprised even Richter — multiple sell-outs in the first year, and a string of videos that collectively surpassed 5 million views.
The product hit a nerve: renters, budget-conscious homeowners, and design-forward DIYers who had always wanted the look of cove lighting but had no path to get there. Now they did.
"Cove lighting used to mean calling a contractor. We made it something anyone could do on a Saturday afternoon."
What's Next
With a proven product and a loyal customer base built largely on word of mouth and organic video, Richter is ready to move upmarket. Luma Cove is expanding into architectural aluminum profiles for retrofits — bringing the same obsessive attention to detail that defined the original product into territory that was once reserved for the pros. The gap between exposed LED strips and high-end architectural lighting is closing fast, and Richter intends to be the one who closes it.
