"MetaLens" Secures Over 100 Million Yuan in Series A+ Financing and Builds the World's First Mass Production and Delivery Line for Metalenses | HardcoreTech First Report

Written by Hu Yiting

Edited by Yuan Silai

Hardcore Ke learned that recently, the ultrathin lens design and manufacturing company "MetaLens" announced the completion of a over 100 million yuan Series A+ financing round. The investors in this round are Yonghua Investment, Yunshi Capital, Cornerstone Pujiang, Nut Capital, Huiyu Investment, Hushang Venture Capital, Nanshan Zhanxintou, Ventech China and Zhenghe Capital. Among them, Yunshi Capital has continuously increased its investment as an old shareholder for three rounds. This round of financing is mainly used for new product development and capacity expansion.

MetaLens was founded in 2020, mainly engaged in the design and manufacturing of ultrathin lenses. Its products include folded-hybrid ultrathin lens systems, MetaToF® transmitter and receiver, MetaStruclight® structured light transmitter and receiver, visible light consumer electronic lenses, visible light automotive lenses, etc., and are applied in consumer electronics, automotive electronics, industrial inspection and other fields. Within four years of its establishment, MetaLens has completed angel round, Pre-A round, A round, and A+ round of financing, with a cumulative amount of several hundred million yuan.

Ultrathin lenses are two-dimensional planar lenses in which nanostructures with special electromagnetic properties are arranged in a certain way, which can flexibly regulate the parameters such as the amplitude, phase, and polarization of the incident light. Due to its characteristics of being "thin, light, simple, inexpensive, high-performance, and stable", ultrathin lenses were once predicted to be widely used in the fields of mobile phone cameras, automotive electronics, sensors, etc. in the future.

In recent years, global technology and consumer electronics leading enterprises such as Apple and Samsung have begun to vigorously layout the direction of ultrathin lenses, and have applied this technology to terminal devices.

Since its establishment, MetaLens has focused on the development of wide-spectrum ultrathin lens products. Among them, products such as mobile phone cameras and automotive cameras belong to the wide-spectrum, and the global market size has reached tens of billions of yuan. In March of this year, MetaLens released the world's first prototype lens of a folded-hybrid optical system with wide-spectrum visible light aberration correction, and in September, it released a sample of a lens product for automotive scenarios. Currently, MetaLens lenses have entered the mass production stage.

The world's first prototype lens of a wide-spectrum visible light aberration-corrected folded-hybrid optical system, Image source: The enterprise

Visible light automotive lens, Image source: The enterprise

In terms of production capacity, MetaLens has now entered a stage of explosive growth in order volume. Currently, in the fields of consumer electronics and others, it has delivered tens of thousands of lenses and is in continuous delivery, and the production capacity is nearly saturated. In order to meet the continuous large-volume order delivery, MetaLens has built the world's first ultrathin lens mass production and delivery production line in Huzhou, with a monthly production capacity of several million lenses, and the production line has now been officially put into operation.

In addition to completing the current mass production lens assembly line, MetaLens plans to build a visible light mass production manufacturing base to meet the full-line independent lens production of ultrathin lenses from the front-end lithography to the back-end delivery.

Investor's perspective:

Yunshi Capital stated: MetaLens adheres to the vision of optical planarization, and steadily leads the industrial implementation of metasurface optical technology. From the original patent layout in the early stage of entrepreneurship, the full-stack self-developed tool chain and process database, and the realization of trial production capacity by collaborating with the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, to the realization of product implementation in multiple fields such as industry, consumer electronics, and automobiles through co-creation with industry giants, to the launch of the world's first wide-spectrum visible light ultrathin lens, and finally the establishment of a mass production and delivery center in Huzhou. MetaLens has completed the transitions in multiple links necessary for an industry promoter, such as breakthroughs in basic principles, industrial patent layout, co-creation with the upstream and downstream, and polishing of mass production and delivery, proving the team's scientific vision and entrepreneurial spirit. Yunshi Capital adheres to the concept of "using innovation to assist innovation", and has assisted the MetaLens team for multiple rounds. It believes that the innovative achievements of MetaLens will eventually drive technological changes in multiple fundamental fields such as display, communication, and computing, and ultimately change the industrial pattern and daily life form.

Yonghua Investment stated: Ultrathin lenses are arrays of subwavelength micro-nano structures with specific design and processing, which can achieve precise control of light with several orders of magnitude higher than traditional lenses, thereby achieving the focusing, shaping, and directional propagation of light beams by planar lenses, and have a strong industry-disruptive significance. In addition, the company's pioneering folded-hybrid system design can reduce the use of expensive aspherical lenses or special material lenses in the lens, bringing higher design freedom to the lens design in the fields of visible light and others, thereby bringing advantages in multiple dimensions such as smaller system volume, lighter weight, lower cost, better imaging, and easier integration. 2024 is a fruitful year. With the commissioning of the Huzhou factory, MetaLens has achieved a breakthrough from the cutting-edge theory to the construction of the delivery capacity of millions of lenses. In the future, Yonghua Investment will gather the industrial ecosystem, continuously empower, and assist the enterprise to grow and develop.