VentureWire: Ophthonix Espies $17M Series C
October 12, 2005
Ophthonix Espies $17M Series C
By Alex Halperin 10/12/2005
Ophthonix Inc., a developer and marketer of advanced eyeglass lenses, has raised $17 million in Series C funding to fuel its commercialization efforts.
New investor InterWest Partners led the up-round. Trex Enterprises and Wasatch Advisors also joined the syndicate as new investors. Existing stakeholders Gund Investment Enterprise Partners and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers reinvested.
In its two previous rounds of VC funding, Ophthonix raised about $25 million.
While standard glasses lenses correct two problems in vision, Ophthonix markets lenses that strive to address 38, including factors such as contrast. The company also sells a diagnostic device to determine a patient's prescription for the new lenses, manufactured by Ophthonix.
Chief Executive Andreas Dreher said he expects the Series C money to last between 15 and 18 months, about when the company plans to begin its national rollout. The products became available in Southern California earlier this year. In 2006 the company plans to introduce an equivalent line of compact lens.
Gil Kliman, an ophthalmologist and InterWest general partner who is joining the Ophthonix board said the lenses are a "totally neat pioneering technology for glasses."
The lenses he said aim to mimic the vision improvements rendered by the popular Lasik surgical procedure. "It's kind of ironic that the tech got worked out cutting human tissue" before it was used on inanimate objects, he said. "I think it's the first time that's happened in the history of medicine."
The San Diego-based company has 52 employees and is hiring.