IXI, a Finnish eyewear hardware company, has raised US$36.5 million (AU$56.5 million) in funding to develop what it says is the world’s first autofocus lenses for eyewear that adapt to the wearer’s eyes.
An article in siliconAngle said the Series A round was led by Plural, with participation from byFounders, Heartcore, Eurazeo, FOV Ventures and Tiny Supercomputer, alongside the company’s existing investors, including Amazon Alexa Fund, First Fellow and half a dozen others.
Founded in 2021, IXI’s founders, chief executive Mr Niko Eiden and chief algorithm officer Mr Ville Miettinen previously co-founded the premium mixed reality hardware startup Varjo Technologies Oy.
There they gained experience with advanced optics for augmented reality and mixed reality devices that require precision lenses for eye-tracking solutions, which inspired them to create dynamic lenses for everyday eyewear that could solve challenges for vision correction.
“Eyewear is the world’s oldest wearable, rooted in centuries of brilliance across science, design and craftsmanship,” said Eiden. “That being said, it’s incredible that we haven’t seen more technology leaps, leaving millions of people forced to compromise on how they see the world.”
The article said that, as individuals aged, eyesight tended to worsen, often leading to age-related farsightedness, otherwise known as presbyopia.
Some people have reading glasses for viewing close-up objects or purchase bifocal or multifocal glasses. Multifocal glasses require people to look through a specific portion of the lens to see close or far objects with clarity.
Although to many wearers the action becomes second nature, these glasses do come with some limitations, such as reducing their field of view and distorting objects in the periphery.
“The time for change is now,” Eiden said. “We’re creating a whole new era in vision tech — and we can’t wait to show the world what’s coming.”
IXI said it wanted to design its glasses with an eye for fashion. By partnering with luxury eyewear designers, its smart eyewear frames will look similar to high-end glasses rather than an assistive device.
Unlike traditional eye-tracking systems found in mixed reality headsets, IXI’s approach uses a proprietary low-power infrared system built directly into the lenses. Instead of tracking eye movement, it measures eye convergence, the subtle angle your eyes turn inward when focusing on something up close. That data is sent to a tiny microcontroller embedded in the nose bridge, which dynamically adjusts the lens focus in real time.
According to the company it uses less than 1% of the energy required by camera-based trackers, enabling all-day battery life for the tiny cells embedded in the frames.
Although the company said it initially intends to focus on age-related vision correction, the adaptive lens technology could have implications for other eyesight issues. The ultra-low-power capabilities and thin lens design would also make it useful for integration within AR/VR headsets.
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