Next-generation lens technology developer Imagia has successfully closed a seed round, raising USD $4.5 million. Firstly, this funding was led by Gates Frontier, and then MetaVC Partners and other strategic investors also joined the round. Imagia plans to use the funds to expedite the development and initial commercial deployment of the company’s first generation of flat, silicon-based optical lenses.

Imagia has claimed that their metalens technology can reduce the size and complexity of optical assemblies by compressing them into a planar, wafer-thin device. By employing a patent-pending approach, Imagia’s technology can create entirely flat metalenses that steer light waves by design through precise patterning of nanoscale structures directly onto different substrates. Conclusively, there is no need for traditional curved lenses. These lenses can be made as small as a single pixel on a digital display and can be designed to be square or round.

According to Imagia, manufacturers of complex optoelectronic products, such as AR/VR headsets, are always faced with trade-offs between ergonomic form and optical function due to limitations of traditional bulk optics. However, with metalenses, these limitations no longer apply. Imagia believes that metalenses provide manufacturers with greater flexibility in optical design, enabling them to achieve higher-performing products while reducing size, weight, and complexity.

“Metamaterials are a true paradigm shift in the way we manipulate light, akin to the shift from analog to digital computing,” said Greg Kress, CEO of Imagia. “Traditional glass lenses have been around for hundreds of years. The inherent constraints of working with these types of lenses result in complex, bulky optical assemblies that require precise mechanical alignments. Imagia changes that approach by building lenses like integrated circuits, something that was not possible until very recently.”

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