Smart glasses maker Even Realities hits $1B valuation with $150M funding led by Meituan, Tencent

Meta and Snap rolled retired caller astute glasses past month, the latest motion that the manufacture is racing to enactment a camera and an AI adjunct onto users’ faces. As the fast-growing marketplace heats up, upstarts similar Even Realities are muscling successful connected the giants.

Even Realities, a three-year-old Shenzhen-headquartered startup, has raised $150 cardinal successful a pre-Series B circular led by Meituan and erstwhile backer Tencent; the circular valued the startup astatine $1 cardinal valuation. Founder and CEO Will Wang told TechCrunch that portion rivals pursuit camera-equipped devices built astir contented seizure and AI, his institution is betting connected display-first glasses that beam accusation consecutive into the wearer’s enactment of show without giving up privacy.

Even’s earlier backers are mostly high-profile China names — Hillhouse, Sequoia China, and Northern Light Venture Capital.

Even was started by ex-Apple engineers successful 2023. CEO Wang worked connected the Apple Watch and iPhone; different co-founders came from tech, and 2 came from luxury eyewear companies, including Lindberg. The startup moved quickly, launching its archetypal product, the G1, successful 2024 arsenic what Wang calls the lightest waveguide astute glasses past connected the market.

Even blew past its ain 10,000-unit people to go the archetypal institution successful the class to merchantability much than 10,000 pairs, according to the institution CEO. It raised wealth faster than expected, and swelled from 30–40 unit successful 2024 to 300–400 today.

The startup’s latest flagship, the G2, deed the marketplace past November and skips the camera entirely. Instead, a heads-up show built into the frames feeds accusation to the wearer, controlled by a companion ring, the Even R1, that users pat and swipe to navigate.

Removing the camera is an important portion of Even’s privateness philosophy, though not the full story, Wang continued. Smart glasses, helium said, are astir apt the astir idiosyncratic computing instrumentality radical volition ever wear. Worn connected the look each day, they person to consciousness comfy to some the wearer and those astir them, truthful privateness is designed into some the hardware and the software. Voice features similar translation transcribe audio into substance alternatively than storing recordings; idiosyncratic information is encrypted, and the infrastructure is built to conscionable Europe’s strict privateness standards, Wang added.

Even’s powerfulness users thin hard connected Conversate, a copilot that reads a speech successful existent time, explaining unfamiliar jargon oregon feeding follow-ups connected the fly, past syncing a summary to their phone.

Still, Even has invested astir heavy successful optics (the show and wide optical performance), which Wang says is what separates astute glasses from different user electronics.

“With a telephone oregon a watch, the show is conscionable a accepted OLED oregon LCD screen. Smart glasses are the archetypal merchandise class to trust connected optical displays, which necessitate an wholly antithetic exertion stack; you person to plan the microchip, the optics, and the waveguide together. That’s wherever we’ve invested the most,” Wang said.

The institution developed a proprietary optical exertion called Even HAO, oregon Holistic Adaptive Optics, an end-to-end plan that integrates the microchip, waveguide and medicine enactment from the start, alternatively than combining components designed separately.  

More than fractional of Even’s users beryllium successful the U.S. — its fastest-growing marketplace — and truthful does the bulk of its developer community. The institution doesn’t merchantability successful China yet, adjacent though it manufactures determination crossed respective factories; its main markets are the U.S., Japan, South Korea, the Middle East, and Europe. “The request determination is significant, truthful we privation to marque definite we’re prepared first,” Wang said.

Even sells adjacent the apical of the class connected terms and inactive moves existent volume, making it a profitable subordinate successful the space, Wang said. “Most of our customers are antheral professionals betwixt 30 and 50 years old. We ran a survey and recovered that astir a 3rd of our users are institution executives,” helium added. The frames retail for $599 earlier tax; medicine lenses oregon the ringing tack connected different $200–$300, pushing the mean bid to astir $1,000.