Smart glasses are quickly becoming one of tech's hottest trends.

Meta has already put cameras, speakers, AI, and displays into glasses from Ray-Ban and Oakley. Its glasses can take photos and videos, play music, make calls, send messages, translate languages, and provide AI-powered information about the world around you.

Google is coming after the market, too. It's working with Samsung and eyewear brands including Warby Parker and Gentle Monster on glasses powered by its Gemini AI. These devices are being designed to give directions, send texts, snap photos, play music, and put useful information directly in front of users.

But while Big Tech is focused largely on making glasses that help people do more, one startup is focused on something more fundamental: Helping people see more.

It's called Innovega.

Founded in 2008, Innovega is developing smart glasses specifically for people suffering from moderate to severe vision loss. That's a potential market of roughly 295 million people worldwide.

Its first-generation smart glasses are designed to restore functional vision for people whose eyesight can't be adequately corrected with conventional glasses.

The system uses cameras to capture what's in front of a wearer, then digitally enhances the image and presents it on high-resolution displays. This can help someone with serious vision loss do things many of us take for granted — like reading, recognizing faces, watching television, or navigating the world around them. Innovega says its technology has already demonstrated statistically significant improvements in functional vision during clinical testing.

But that's just the beginning. Innovega is also developing a more ambitious second-generation platform called eMacula.

This system combines smart glasses with the company's proprietary iOptik contact lenses. By moving some of the optical technology from the glasses onto the eye itself, Innovega believes it can ultimately create glasses that are lighter and less bulky while still providing a high-resolution digital display.

Essentially, Innovega is trying to deliver the capabilities of advanced augmented-reality eyewear in something that looks more like an ordinary pair of glasses.

And the company has spent years building intellectual property around this approach.

Innovega has filed roughly 80 U.S. and international patent cases covering its smart glasses, contact lenses, displays, software, manufacturing methods, and related technologies. Its development has also received backing from organizations including DARPA, the National Eye Institute, and the National Science Foundation.

It has made significant regulatory progress, too. Innovega has conducted multiple clinical studies involving its technology and has completed pivotal Phase III trials involving its base contact lens. The company has also met with the FDA regarding its path toward regulatory clearance.

Commercialization is now becoming the focus. Innovega's first target is the low-vision market, where its glasses could potentially give millions of visually impaired people greater independence. The company has signed a worldwide licensing and distribution agreement covering certain applications of its technology in the low-vision and blindness market.

Over time, however, Innovega's opportunity could expand well beyond healthcare. The same technology that can put an enhanced image in front of someone with poor eyesight could potentially be used for augmented reality, artificial intelligence, entertainment, industrial applications, and other forms of smart eyewear.

That could make Innovega more than a medical-device company. It could become an important technology provider for the broader smart-glasses market.

Team Background

Steve Willey - President & CEO

Steve has led founding teams in nearly half a dozen companies, and has led several prior ventures to successful exits.

He began his career as a general manager with MDI, a telecommunications business that created the world’s first wireless data system for public safety. This company was eventually acquired by Motorola. After that, he co-founded Interphase Technologies, a company that developed a line of gaming products.

From there, Steve co-founded Pro.Net, a web-development company, and Creo Products, a company that made high-performance laser-imaging products. He then co-founded Microvision, which invented PicoProjector, a high-performance embedded component for mobile devices. Under his management, Microvision went public and was listed on the Nasdaq.

More recently, Steve was President and CEO of TSE, a company creating telematics products that licensed its creations to Qualcomm. He left this position to start Innovega.

He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from McMaster University, a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Graphics from The University of British Columbia, and an MBA from UCLA.

Arthur Zhang - Chief Technology Officer

Arthur became Innovega’s Chief Technology Officer in August 2024, after a stint as a senior advisor with the company.

He joined Innovega after a nine-year career with Apple, serving as a technologist and senior manager of the company’s vision-products group. While there, he helped develop the first generation of Apple’s Vision Pro VR headset, focusing on product-level prototyping and performance validating.

Before that, Arthur was Director of Fabrication and Device Integration with Nanovision Biosciences, a company creating implants for retinal prosthesis. Prior to that, he was a research engineer with West Wireless Health Institute, a non-profit focused on lowering healthcare costs. While there, he investigated alternative-energy sources for powering wearable devices and developed software tools for a wearable fetal monitor.

Earlier in his career, he was a student researcher at University of California, San Diego and Stanford. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell and a Ph.D. in Semiconductor Physics and Photodetection from UC San Diego.

Jay Marsh - Senior Vice President, Engineering

Jay has more than twenty-five years of experience in engineering and product design.

In addition to his role with Innovega, he’s a principal-design engineer with 3D Systems Corporation, a company bringing three-dimensional printing to the manufacturing industry, where he focuses on integrating lasers, scanners, and optics into various products.

Prior to joining Innovega in 2013, he spent sixteen years with Advanced Projects Research, Inc., an aviation and aerospace company. While there, he was a senior engineer, principal engineer, and then VP of Engineering. He was the lead engineer on several R&D projects for the U.S. Army, Air Force, and NASA.

Jay began his career as a design engineer with Honda, the automotive manufacturer, and USElectricar, another automotive business. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Mercer University and a Master’s in the same field from California State Polytechnic University-Pomona.

Co-Investors

Tencent

An internet services company that's invested in Spotify, Tesla, and Snap.