Shenzhen-based smart glasses maker Even Realities has raised $150 million in a pre-Series B round led by Meituan, with returning backer Tencent participating and valuing the three-year-old startup at $1 billion. Founder and chief executive Will Wang confirmed the deal to TechCrunch on July 6, 2026.
Camera-Free Bet In A Camera-Heavy Race
Even Realities is doubling down on a display-first strategy just as Meta and Snap push camera-equipped smart glasses. Its flagship Even G2, launched last November, skips the camera entirely and beams information into the wearer's line of sight through a waveguide heads-up display, controlled by the companion Even R1 smart ring.
The design, Wang told TechCrunch, is grounded in a proprietary optical stack called Even HAO (Holistic Adaptive Optics), which co-designs the microchip, waveguide, and prescription lens layer rather than combining parts from separate suppliers.
10,000 Units Sold, Headcount 10x In A Year
Even blew past its own 10,000-unit target, according to Wang, becoming the first vendor in the display-only smart glasses category to cross that mark. The company grew from 30-40 staff in 2024 to between 300 and 400 today, with the U.S. as its fastest-growing market. Japan, South Korea, the Middle East, and Europe round out its top regions. It does not yet sell in China.
Where The Money Goes
Even Realities plans to plow the fresh capital into its next-generation smart glasses platform, deeper AI integration, and global operations. The average order value sits near $1,000, with the G2 frames retailing for $599 before tax and the R1 ring adding another $249. About a third of Even's users are company executives, per an internal survey, and roughly half sit in the United States.
Meituan And Tencent Extend Wearables Push
The round marks Meituan's latest bet on wearable AI hardware, after its recent moves into humanoid robotics and delivery drones. Tencent, an earlier Even backer alongside Hillhouse, Sequoia China, and Northern Light Venture Capital, is doubling down after seeing volumes accelerate. The deal follows a wave of AI-hardware financings that included Zeroth Robotics' $73M Ant Group-led round and SambaNova's $1B Series F, and comes days after Anthropic and Samsung signed a custom 2nm chip deal to widen inference supply.
Reporting based on coverage from TechCrunch, CNBC, and Dealroom.