IXI Secures $36.5M From Amazon to Revolutionize Prescription Glasses
▼ Summary
– IXI, a Finnish startup, is developing smart glasses that automatically adjust to correct vision, aiming to make traditional prescription glasses obsolete, and has secured $36.5 million in Series A funding with backing from Amazon’s Alexa Fund.
– The glasses use liquid crystal lenses and eye-tracking technology to adapt seamlessly to the wearer’s vision needs, focusing on enhancing eyesight rather than digital augmentation.
– Competitors are exploring similar technologies, but IXI’s patent filings and investor confidence, including Amazon’s involvement, suggest they may lead the market.
– IXI plans to unveil a working prototype later this year, with regulatory approvals needed as the glasses qualify as medical devices, positioning them to potentially redefine vision correction.
A Finnish startup is shaking up the eyewear industry with cutting-edge technology that could make traditional prescription glasses obsolete. IXI, a Helsinki-based company, just secured $36.5 million in Series A funding, with backing from Amazon’s Alexa Fund and other prominent investors. Their mission? To develop smart glasses that automatically adjust to correct vision without bulky hardware or manual adjustments.
The company’s founders, Niko Eiden and Ville Miettinen, bring deep expertise from their previous work at Nokia and Varjo, a mixed-reality headset developer. Their latest venture focuses on liquid crystal lenses and eye-tracking technology, creating glasses that seamlessly adapt to a wearer’s vision needs—whether reading a book or driving a car. Unlike VR or AR headsets, IXI’s product is purely about enhancing eyesight, not layering digital content over the real world.
The eyewear market is massive—worth over $200 billion—and growing faster than smartphones. Yet, most innovations have focused on style or digital augmentation rather than improving vision itself. IXI aims to change that by eliminating the need for multiple pairs of glasses or cumbersome bifocals. Their prototype uses low-power eye-tracking and liquid crystal lenses to adjust focus instantly, with a battery life of roughly two days. Even if the battery dies, the lenses default to a standard prescription, ensuring users aren’t left struggling to see.
Competitors like Japan’s Elcyo and France’s Laclarée are exploring similar concepts, but none have brought a product to market yet. IXI’s patent filings and strong investor confidence suggest they may be ahead of the curve. Amazon’s involvement is particularly telling—while the company already sells basic reading glasses, this investment hints at broader ambitions in health-focused wearable tech.
Paul Bernard of the Alexa Fund praised IXI’s approach, noting that current vision solutions are often clunky and outdated. “Auto-tuning lenses require precision engineering, and IXI’s team has the right background to pull it off,” he said.
Though IXI hasn’t announced a commercial launch date, they plan to unveil a working prototype later this year. Regulatory approvals will be a hurdle, given that these glasses qualify as medical devices. But with $36.5 million in fresh funding and heavyweight backers, IXI is well-positioned to redefine how we see the world—literally.
As Sten Tamkivi of Plural put it, “This isn’t just an investment in a company—it’s a bet on a future where technology finally fixes human vision for good.”
(Source: TechCrunch)
