Israel

  • Print Friendly, PDF & Email
  • Send to Kindle

Israeli Company Raises $4 Million to Develop Adaptable Eyeglasses

DeepOptics, a pioneer of dynamic focal glasses, has raised $4 million in Series A funding toward the development of its proprietary technology designed to streamline vision for the two billion people requiring multifocal vision correction.

As reported by ISRAEL21c last October, DeepOptics seeks to disrupt the multibillion-dollar multifocal market with its patent-pending electronic Omnifocals.

The eyeglasses consist of two layers: a regular static lens for far vision and a pixelated dynamic liquid-crystal lens for near and intermediate vision. The electronic pixelated lens constantly adjusts viewing distance based on data processed in the frame from two hidden sensors tracking the wearer’s line of sight.

DeepOptics, based in Petah Tikva, was named the most promising start-up at the sixth annual Israel Machine Vision Conference and Exhibition in 2015.

“The human eye has a natural focusing ability that degrades with age. Current multifocal glasses compensate for this degradation, but they cannot offer adaptable correction power management,” explained Yariv Haddad, cofounder and CEO of DeepOptics.

“The dynamic solution we’re developing is actually similar to the human focusing mechanism, and so in addition to its superior lens function, it should be even easier to get used to with minimal, if any, adjustment required.”

The funding round included strategic investor Essilor, the world leader in ophthalmic optics; Taiwan-based Atomics 14 Ventures and several private investors including Saar Wilf, DeepOptics’s chairman and first investor.

Phil Chen, founder of Atomic 14 Ventures, said developers of augmented-reality (AR) and virtual-reality (VR) products have expressed interest in the DeepOptics technology as a way of “improving depth perception and overall authenticity of the 3D experience.”

A video explaining the technology behind these lenses is embedded below.

(via Israel21c)

[Photo: DeepOptics / YouTube ]