Even Realities, a Shenzhen-based smart glasses startup founded by a former Apple $AAPL engineer, has raised $150 million in a pre-Series B funding round, reaching a $1 billion valuation. Meituan and Tencent led the round.
The Shenzhen-based startup, founded by a former Apple Watch engineer, is targeting Meta's dominance in the fast-growing smart glasses market
Bloomberg / Getty Images
Even Realities, a Shenzhen-based smart glasses startup founded by a former Apple $AAPL engineer, has raised $150 million in a pre-Series B funding round, reaching a $1 billion valuation. Meituan and Tencent led the round.
According to TechCrunch, Even Realities founder and CEO Will Wang — who spent two years at Apple before leaving in 2018, contributing to both the Apple Watch and iPhone — launched Even Realities in 2023 with a founding team that drew from enterprise technology and the luxury eyewear world. The startup has grown from 30 to 40 employees in 2024 to between 300 and 400 today.
Proceeds from the raise will go toward building out a next-generation platform, strengthening AI capabilities, broadening its international footprint, and speeding up its product roadmap, the company said.
The startup's flagship product, the Even G2, launched last November and carries a retail price of $599 before tax. Where Meta $META's Ray-Ban glasses pack in a camera, the G2 deliberately omits any recording hardware. Information — including messages, turn-by-turn directions, and real-time translation — is piped directly to the wearer through optics embedded in the lenses. The Even R1 smart ring serves as the input device, allowing wearers to navigate the display using tap and swipe gestures. Buyers who add prescription lenses or the R1 ring typically spend an additional $200 to $300, bringing the average transaction to roughly $1,000.
In an interview with TechCrunch, Wang described smart glasses as occupying a uniquely intimate position in personal computing — something worn on the face all day — and said that privacy considerations are therefore baked into the product at every level, from components to code. On the software side, translation and other voice functions convert speech into text without retaining audio recordings, and the platform's infrastructure is built around European data protection requirements.
The company said U.S. customers account for more than half its user base, and that roughly 80% of the developers building on its platform are also based there. The startup does not currently sell in China despite manufacturing there.
The funding arrives as the smart glasses market expands. IDC data cited by CNBC shows the smart glasses category shipped 2.25 million units in the first quarter, a 167% jump from the same period the prior year. Meta commanded roughly 70% of that market over the same period.
Meta has been pushing deeper into smart glasses, launching a new line under its own brand name starting at $299, built in partnership with EssilorLuxottica. That line includes open-ear audio, a camera, and Meta's updated AI model, positioning it below the Ray-Ban Meta on price to reach a wider audience.
Even Realities' earlier backers include HSG, CDH Investment, Monolith Management, and CVC Capital.
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