Even Realities Raises $150M at a Pivotal Moment for Smart Glasses

Even Realities just became the latest smart glasses company to hit unicorn status, and it’s doing things differently than pretty much everyone else.

The Shenzhen-based company announced today it has raised $150 million in a pre-Series B round led by Meituan and Tencent, bringing its valuation to $1 billion. The funding comes at what the company calls a “pivotal moment” for the category, with Apple, Samsung, and Google all reportedly preparing smart glasses products of their own.

Price: $599
Where to buy: Even Realities

But here’s what makes Even Realities’ bet interesting: it’s building smart glasses without a camera.

While Meta’s Ray-Ban Stories lean hard into content capture and AI assistants, and Apple’s rumored entry is expected to follow the camera-equipped route, Even Realities has stuck to a display-first philosophy. The company’s Even G2 glasses put information directly in your line of sight through an unobtrusive heads-up display integrated into what looks like a normal pair of premium eyewear. There’s no outward-facing camera. No recording indicator light. Just a floating display you can see, and nobody else can.

That’s not a small distinction. Walk into any coffee shop with a pair of camera-equipped smart glasses, and you’re carrying a privacy conversation you didn’t ask for. Even Realities’ argument is that by removing the camera from the hardware entirely, the privacy question disappears by design rather than by policy.

The numbers back up the thesis

The company says users wear its Even G2 glasses for an average of 8 to 10 hours per day, which massively outperforms category benchmarks for wearable displays. More than half of Even Realities’ user base is in the United States, and roughly 80% of its developer community is U.S.-based, suggesting the product’s appeal extends well beyond its Chinese home market.

Those engagement numbers are the kind that make investors pay attention, even in a category that’s seen plenty of hype cycles come and go.

A familiar name behind the hardware

Even Realities was founded in 2023 by Will Wang, a former Apple engineer who worked on the development and mass production of the iPhone and Apple Watch. That pedigree shows in the company’s design philosophy: the Even G2 is lightweight, discreet, and designed to be worn all day rather than pulled out of a case for specific tasks.

The company also sells the Even R1, a companion smart ring that turns its surface into a discreet touchpad for controlling the glasses through taps and scrolls without drawing attention.

What the money is for

The $150 million pre-Series B will go toward the development of Even Realities’ next-generation smart glasses platform, deeper AI integration, and scaling global operations. The company plans to accelerate product innovation as it builds toward what it describes as “the next paradigm of human-computer interaction.”

Wang Xinyu, a partner at Meituan, framed the bet in generational terms: “The AI revolution demands a new interface beyond the smartphone. We see glasses as the most promising option. They offer continuous, contextual feedback without interrupting daily life. Yet most players still build with smartphone-era logic, piling on features. Even Realities takes a different path.”

The TG take

We’ve been following Even Realities since CES earlier this year, where we went hands-on with the G2 and came away impressed by the company’s restraint. In a category where every new product seems to add more sensors, more LEDs, and more cameras, Even Realities has been asking a different question: what if smart glasses were just glasses that happened to be smart?

The company’s display-first bet also extends into pop culture. Even Realities recently partnered with IO Interactive to integrate the G2 into the upcoming 007 First Light video game, marking the first time a real-world wearable has been embedded in a Bond title.

The $150 million and the $1 billion valuation that comes with it suggests the market thinks that question is worth answering.

A personal note on living in the G2

I’ve been wearing both pairs of the new G2, and one of them carries my own prescription. That’s not a small test. My script is a complex progressive that has to nail distance vision and close-up reading in a single lens, and Even Realities got it right. The optics are some of the best I’ve ever put on my face.

So when the company says people wear these 8 to 10 hours a day, that tracks with my own experience. It isn’t marketing spin. These are comfortable enough, and useful enough as glasses you actually see through, that you stop noticing the smart layer at all. Mine go on when my day starts and stay put until I’m heading to bed. Some days that’s a straight run from 6 a.m. to midnight.

Even Realities isn’t the only player in this space. Meta’s been pouring billions into smart glasses through its partnership with EssilorLuxottica. Apple’s widely expected to enter the category. Google’s reportedly working on its own offering. But at least for now, Even Realities is the one proving you can build a billion-dollar smart glasses company without a camera.

Price: $599
Where to buy: Even Realities

Whether that bet pays off depends on how the category evolves. But for a company that’s been around for just three years, the trajectory is unmistakable.