The company was founded in 2011 by Anna Stork and Andrea Sreshta, who invented the technology in 2010 in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake while at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
[7] They later experienced firsthand the damage caused by large-scale disasters while on a school trip during the March 2011 earthquake in Japan.
[10][11][12][13][14] Stork and Sreshta appeared on ABC's Shark Tank in February 2015 seeking a deal to fund their company.
They received offers from all five of the "sharks," and accepted a deal with Mark Cuban for $200,000 for 15 percent of their company's equity.
[16] After working together to distribute lights in the Philippines in 2013 after a typhoon, LuminAID and ShelterBox, an organization that provides disaster relief services, became strategic partners.