Zhige Technology Secures Another Hundred-Million-Yuan-Level Financing within Six Months, an AR Glasses Optics Manufacturer Incubated by Tsinghua University | Exclusive Report by 36Kr

Author | Zhang Ziyi

Editor | Peng Xiaoqiu

36Kr learned that Zhige Technology, an optical manufacturer of AR glasses, recently completed another financing worth hundreds of millions of yuan. This is the second round of financing worth hundreds of millions of yuan it has completed in 2025.

This round of financing was led by Yinrun Capital. The old shareholder, Fangguang Capital, made an over - subscribed follow - up investment. Jiude Investment, Talent Science and Innovation Fund, and Yijing Technology also participated in the investment. The funds will be mainly used for capacity improvement, team expansion, and product R & D iteration.

Founded in 2019, Zhige Technology is a high - tech and specialized, refined, characteristic, and innovative enterprise focusing on the fields of AR diffractive optical waveguides, diffraction gratings, and micro - nano optics. The company was incubated from the Grating and Measurement Laboratory of the Department of Precision Instruments at Tsinghua University. Its core team includes Yangtze River Scholars, National Outstanding Youth Fund recipients, National Ten - Thousand - Talent Program members, Tsinghua University doctors, and former executives of listed companies.

Diffractive optical waveguide is an optical solution used in AR/AI glasses. Due to its advantages such as lightness, thinness, high light transmittance, and large - scale mass - production capabilities, it is considered the most promising optical solution for AR at present. More than half of the new AR glasses released in the past two years have adopted diffractive optical waveguide technology.

In recent years, with the improvement of the capabilities of large AI models, the development of AI glasses has accelerated significantly. Tech giants such as Meta, Samsung, Apple, Amazon, Xiaomi, Huawei, Alibaba, and ByteDance have all participated in the R & D of AI glasses.

Data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) shows that the global shipment of smart glasses is expected to reach 12.8 million units in 2025, a year - on - year increase of 26%. The Chinese market will exceed 2.75 million units, a year - on - year increase of 107%, ranking first in the world.

As the smart glasses industry develops rapidly, waveguide manufacturers represented by Zhige Technology are like "ammunition providers" for downstream brand customers. It has served many consumer electronics and Internet giants as well as unicorn companies in the AR glasses field.

The mass - production of domestic diffractive optical waveguides started in 2021. Zhige Technology has built the first fully automated mass - production line for diffractive optical waveguides in China, with a monthly production capacity of up to 100,000 pieces. It has also achieved a monthly mass - production shipment of 20,000 pieces, leading the industry in both production capacity and shipment volume.

Zhige Technology independently masters three core technologies: "grating design, grating master processing, and nano - imprint production", and has created an IDM model (an operating model with full - chain capabilities from design to manufacturing).

Meng Xiangfeng, CEO of Zhige Technology, said that the AR glasses industry has extremely high requirements for lens customization. It is difficult to serve all customers with a single optical product. Different customers have their own requirements for the display performance and appearance of waveguide lenses. The IDM model can not only achieve customized product design for customers but also iterate technology faster and achieve product mass - production, offering greater flexibility and freedom.

Diffractive optical waveguide is a relatively cutting - edge and emerging optical technology. In recent years, while improving in terms of display effect and wearing experience, it also faces problems in practical applications, such as rainbow patterns (visual pollution caused by diffraction and light splitting) and light leakage (there is a risk of privacy leakage as people facing the wearer can see the display content).

Zhige Technology also realized the importance of improving the wearing experience of AR/AI glasses in its cooperation with customers.

"We made an important strategic decision to make waveguide lenses closer to the wearing experience of ordinary glasses. Only by making consumers more comfortable using AR glasses can we more likely promote related technologies," Meng Xiangfeng told 36Kr.

36Kr learned that in response to the core problem of rainbow patterns affecting the user experience of AR glasses, Zhige Technology has developed a "rainbow - free" patented technology. Through a unique optical design, it guides the rainbow patterns to diverge at a specific angle, preventing them from entering the human eye. This ensures that users can't perceive rainbow patterns in 95% of scenarios. At the same time, to improve the light transmittance of AR glasses, Zhige Technology uses complex optical designs and processing methods. The comprehensive light transmittance of its waveguide lenses exceeds 98%, and the light transmittance of the non - grating area reaches over 99%, comparable to that of high - end glasses lenses.

Zhige Technology also has a patented technology for gradient gratings, which improves the display uniformity and aesthetic appearance. At the same time, through a unique waveguide optical architecture design, it effectively improves the light - leakage problem. In addition, its waveguide lenses are extremely light and thin, weighing less than 4g. The thickness of the pure waveguide sheet is only 0.4mm, and the thickness after overlaying the cover plate is controlled within 0.65mm, greatly improving the wearing comfort.

In addition, since AR glasses need to be used in outdoor scenarios and "resist" high - brightness scenarios such as sunlight, the brightness of light entering the human eye is also an important indicator for measuring product performance. Therefore, Zhige Technology continuously improves the light efficiency of waveguide sheets through technological improvements. The light efficiency of its mass - produced products reaches 1000 nits/lm, leading the industry. The improvement of light efficiency means higher brightness of light entering the eye and lower system power consumption.

In Meng Xiangfeng's view, only by continuously improving the display effect and wearing experience of waveguide lenses and making them more like ordinary glasses lenses can consumers wear AR glasses all day long. This can further promote the popularization of smart glasses and drive the development of the entire AR/AI glasses industry chain. "Only when AI glasses become more and more user - friendly will the industry attract more upstream and downstream enterprises and various resources. Only then do we have the opportunity to further achieve technological iteration and ultimately realize the future of the metaverse and spatial computing brought by AR glasses."