Even Realities Technology, a Chinese smart-glasses maker founded by an Apple veteran, has achieved unicorn status after raising $150 million in a pre-Series B round led by Meituan and Tencent, giving it a $1 billion valuation.
The Shenzhen-based startup was founded in 2023 by Will Wang, who worked at Apple from 2016 to 2018 and was involved in the development and mass production of the Apple Watch and iPhone. Wang is now taking on Meta Platforms, which controls nearly 70% of the global smart glasses market with its Ray-Ban Meta line.
What sets Even Realities apart is its camera-free design — a deliberate choice that addresses growing privacy concerns around wearable cameras. Instead, the glasses feature a heads-up display (HUD) that overlays AI-powered information directly into the user's field of view, powered by a custom multimodal AI assistant.
More than half of Even Realities' user base is in the United States, and approximately 80% of its developer community is U.S.-based — a striking figure for a Chinese hardware startup. The company has largely been funded by Chinese-origin venture capital and private equity firms.
The smart glasses market is heating up globally, with tech giants and startups alike racing to build the next generation of AI wearables that bring the benefits of large language models and AI assistants to individual users in a hands-free form factor.
Even Realities plans to use the new funding to expand production capacity, accelerate R&D, and grow its developer ecosystem as it seeks to challenge Meta's dominance in the category.
Sources
- cnbc.comCNBC — Apple veteran's Chinese smart-glasses firm becomes unicorn as Tencent, Meituan fund rival to Meta
- techstartups.comTechStartups — Apple veteran's AI smart glasses startup Even Realities hits $1B valuation
- uk.finance.yahoo.comYahoo Finance — Smart glasses maker Even Realities hits $1B valuation with $150M funding
- techcrunch.comTechCrunch — China increasingly keeping its best AI talent to itself
