XPANCEO Valued at $1.35B After Funding
Source: theengineer.co.uk
XPANCEO, a Dubai-based deep tech company focused on smart contact lenses, has finalized a $250m Series A funding round, bringing its valuation to $1.35bn. The funding aims to help launch the world’s first all-in-one smart contact lens, which will integrate extended reality (XR), real-time health monitoring, night vision, and zoom. Opportunity Venture (Asia), who led XPANCEO’s $40m seed round, also led this round.
The new capital will be used to complete the development of the smart contact lens, grow XPANCEO’s team across R&D, product, design, and operations, and speed up the company’s path to market, with the intention of replacing personal gadgets with a wearable.
Roman Axelrod, founder and managing partner at XPANCEO, said that the company’s smart lens technology puts them at least five years ahead, as major players have only recently begun building glasses and headsets. He added that becoming a unicorn indicates they’re on the right path and that they have developed 15 working prototypes in 24 months. Their vision is to merge all devices into a single interface: the eyes.
XPANCEO said it achieved major technological breakthroughs since its last round in 2023, including a lens for AR vision, a smart lens with intraocular pressure (IOP) sensing for glaucoma monitoring, a biochemical lens that measures health parameters such as glucose directly from tear fluid, and a lens capable of real-time wireless charging and data reading. Other prototypes feature nanoparticle-enhanced lenses for night vision and color correction, and lenses designed for 3D imaging.
Dr Valentyn S. Volkov, founder and scientific partner at XPANCEO, said that to build something this ambitious, they had to push the boundaries of science itself. He added that their team possesses expertise at the forefront of physics, including on novel materials, nanoparticles development, nano-optics, and more. Their approach to research leverages AI to optimize R&D workflows and patent analysis, which allowed them to accelerate the development of prototypes in a short time and contribute to 110 scientific publications.
Philip Ma, managing director of Opportunity Venture (Asia), said XPANCEO is rewriting the rules of personal tech and is poised to lead the post-smartphone era and redefine the personal computing landscape.