IXI, Formerly Pixieray, and Its EIC Accelerator Autofocus Glasses

With age, the eye loses its ability to focus close up. The usual fix is progressive lenses, which come with limits to the field of view, distortions and discomfort, as the EIC project itself puts it. IXI, a Finnish company that until 2025 was called Pixieray, makes glasses whose lenses change their focus electronically, following where the wearer looks.

The EIC Accelerator selected the project, Perfect Vision, at its October 2024 cut-off for blended finance, and CORDIS records a grant of €2,486,750 from June 2025 to May 2027 to bring the glasses to people with myopia and progressing presbyopia. In April 2025 IXI announced $36.5 million of funding led by Plural; in January 2026 it showed prototypes and named 2027 as its launch year.

Varjo's founders, back at the eye

CEO Niko Eiden and chief algorithm officer Ville Miettinen previously co-founded Varjo, the Finnish maker of high-end mixed reality headsets, tech.eu reported. They founded Pixieray in Espoo in 2021, and the Finnish Trade Register lists the company from April 2021 and its new name, IXI Eyewear Oy, from June 2025. A March 2025 report by AIN also names Rebecca Xu and Klaus Melakari among the founders.

Pixieray emerged from stealth in June 2021 with a $4.4 million seed round from Maki.vc, First Fellow, the Amazon Alexa Fund, firstminute capital and angels including David Helgason and Ilkka Paananen, VentureBeat reported.

Liquid crystal lenses and an eye tracker without cameras

The lenses contain a liquid crystal layer whose optical power changes with an electrical signal, and an infrared eye tracker measures where the two eyes converge to work out the viewing distance, according to the CORDIS summary. "We don't use cameras," the company told tech.eu, because cameras are bulky and power-hungry; the eye-tracking sensors sit in the lens plastic, the batteries of about 4 millimetres in diameter in the temples, and the microcontroller and radio in the nose bridge. The batteries are meant to last a full day.

The frame with its electronics weighs 22 grams without lenses, according to the trade publication Glance, and IXI calls it the lightest smart eyewear in the world. In case of a malfunction, the lenses are to fall back to distance vision, Galaxus reported. The company had counted more than 150 inventions, 12 granted patents and about 50 pending applications by April 2025.

Trials without published results

IXI says its work has been part of a clinical research programme since 2021. Its latest phase was an ergonomic study with about 360 participants aged 20 to 70 in London and Finland, followed by a study in the UK, France, Sweden and Germany, Glance reported; the design and results have not been released, and Eiden said more would be shared later. The company plans approval in Europe first and the FDA route for the United States later.

According to Galaxus, IXI showed its prototypes in January 2026 and plans to put the glasses on the market in 2027, first in Europe in two or three frame shapes. The same report notes open questions, including reliability in road traffic.

Perfect Vision

The EIC project targets people whose eyesight is declining because of indoor lifestyles, screen use and age, and specifically myopia combined with progressing presbyopia. CORDIS lists IXI Eyewear Oy as coordinator, signed on 29 May 2025, and shows no periodic report yet. The project ends in May 2027, around the planned market launch.

1. Lightweight adaptive glassesPrototype22-gram frame with electronics, shown to press.
2. Clinical evidenceUnder wayStudies with about 360 participants; no results published.
3. Regulatory approval in EuropeNot yetIn progress, per the company.
4. Market launchToo earlyPlanned for 2027.

Venture money from London and Helsinki

The April 2025 round was led by London-based Plural, with Tesi, Heartcore, FOV Ventures, byFounders, Eurazeo and Tiny Supercomputer joining earlier backers, according to tech.eu. TechCrunch described the $36.5 million as the total raised to date, while tech.eu called it a Series A; Galaxus cites CNN for a figure above $40 million by 2026. Whether the EIC Fund invested the equity part of the blended award is not public. IXI's Finnish accounts were not obtained for this article.

A European eyewear technology

IXI keeps its development in Espoo and plans to seek approval in Europe before the United States, so the EIC grant supports the step from prototype to a certified European product. Its investors include the Finnish investor Tesi alongside funds from London and elsewhere.