Even Realities, a smart glasses company based in Shenzhen, China, just raised $150 million from two major investors: Meituan and Tencent. The funding values the company at $1 billion—a major milestone for a startup founded just three years ago. TechCrunch reported the news in July 2026 based on a conversation with founder Will Wang.

The company's leadership combines two different kinds of expertise. Wang previously worked on hardware design for Apple's Watch and iPhone. Two of the co-founders came from luxury eyewear companies — one worked at Lindberg, a Danish maker known for high-quality frames and lenses. That mix of electronics know-how and optical craftsmanship shaped how Even Realities designed its products.

The Hardware Approach

Even Realities released its first product, the G1, in 2024. It used waveguide technology — a way of displaying information inside the lenses so images appear in your field of vision, similar to a heads-up display in a car. The company sold more than 10,000 pairs in the first year.

The second model, called the G2, came out in November 2025 with a striking choice: no camera. Most smart glasses companies emphasize cameras as a major feature — devices you can wear to record what you see. Even Realities went the opposite direction. The G2 is a display device for information and notifications, paired with a ring for input and control. That narrower focus avoids the privacy concerns and regulatory headaches that cameras in eyewear usually create.

Behind the scenes, Even Realities developed something called Even HAO—a system that combines the display chip, the waveguide lens, and prescription vision correction all in one unified design. Getting prescription lenses to work well with smart glasses displays has been a persistent engineering problem. Most competitors treat prescription as an afterthought, but Even Realities built it in from the start.

Growth and Market Reach

The company has grown rapidly. In 2024 it had 30 to 40 employees. By mid-2026 it had grown to 300 to 400—roughly ten times larger in just 18 months. That speed suggests the company found customers who wanted the product and is now scaling up manufacturing and software.

Where people are buying these glasses matters. More than half of Even Realities' customers are in the United States. For a Chinese company backed by Chinese investors, selling more smart glasses in America than anywhere else is significant. It means the product overcame skepticism that often affects technology from Chinese makers in the US market.

Meituan and Tencent bring more than just money. Meituan runs delivery and logistics services across China. Tencent operates the WeChat platform and digital payments. Both companies can help distribute Even Realities' products in China, though whether they can help the company grow in the US or Europe is less certain.

Why this funding round matters: Even Realities was founded in 2023 and hit unicorn status—a $1 billion valuation—by 2026. That is unusually fast. The smart glasses industry has seen many well-funded startups fail to move beyond prototypes to real sales. Google Glass is the most famous example. Even Realities has already shipped thousands of units that customers are actually buying, which puts it further ahead than most competitors ever got.

The company's decision to leave out the camera signals something important about its strategy. Rather than trying to pack in every possible feature, Even Realities is betting that people will value glasses that feel comfortable to wear every day. The theory goes that the first major smart glasses brand will be the one people actually keep on their faces, not the one with the longest list of features. The next product release will show whether that strategy works long-term or if customers eventually demand cameras and other capabilities.

The $150 million will likely go toward improving the Even HAO technology and expanding sales in the United States. Wang has not announced specific plans for how the money will be spent.