Even Realities raises $150 million to hit a $1 billion valuation

Published: 2026-07-07T07:56:07.000Z

A Shenzhen startup has just reached a billion-dollar valuation by doing the one thing its rivals refuse to, which is leaving the camera off. Even Realities has raised 150 million dollars in a round led by Meituan and Tencent, making it the smart glasses world's newest unicorn.

A Shenzhen startup has just reached a billion-dollar valuation by doing the one thing its rivals refuse to, which is leaving the camera off. Even Realities, founded only three years ago by a group of former Apple engineers, has raised 150 million dollars in a pre-Series B round led by the Chinese giants Meituan and returning backer Tencent, a deal that makes it the smart glasses world's newest unicorn. Its whole strategy rests on a single contrarian design choice, a pair of display-first spectacles that beam notifications, translations and directions straight into the wearer's line of sight without ever pointing a lens at anyone. The pitch is aimed squarely at the discomfort many people feel around Meta's camera-equipped Ray-Bans. Meta still dominates the category with roughly 70 per cent of shipments, but it has been dogged by a privacy storm, including reports that contractors reviewed footage captured in users' private spaces. Even's answer is restraint. Its flagship G2 glasses, which launched last November at 599 dollars before tax, use a two-layer waveguide display driven by tiny projectors and a proprietary optical system the company calls Even HAO, paired with a companion ring worn on the finger that acts as a discreet touchpad. Chief executive Will Wang argues the future is about having the right information appear exactly when needed while staying present in the room. The founder's background shows in the product. Wang worked on the iPhone and Apple Watch, and two co-founders came out of luxury eyewear, including the Danish brand Lindberg, which explains why the glasses are pitched as something you actually wear all day rather than pull from a case. That focus has attracted a specific buyer, mostly male professionals aged 30 to 50, many of them executives, with an average order value close to 1,000 dollars once prescription lenses or the ring are added. The company, which has grown from a few dozen staff to several hundred, says it is profitable and will spend the fresh capital on a next-generation platform, deeper AI and international expansion, though a billion-dollar price tag on a firm that has sold on the order of tens of thousands of pairs clearly prices in a lot of growth that has not yet arrived. The Middle East matters more here than it might first appear, since Even lists the region among its primary markets alongside the United States, Japan, South Korea and Europe. The Gulf, and the UAE in particular, has long been one of the fastest adopters of premium consumer gadgets, with high disposable incomes and a gadget culture on full display at events like GITEX in Dubai. A privacy-first device may also land well in a region increasingly attentive to data sensitivity, even as Meta's cheaper camera glasses compete hard for the same faces.