AllFocal Optics Raises £2.7M to Build Nano-Optical Lenses That Finally Fix AR Headset Eyestrain
September 12, 2024
AllFocal Optics, a UK deeptech company, has raised £2.7 million from SpeedInvest, Martlet Capital, 7Percent Ventures, another.vc, and business angels to develop its nano-optical technology for augmented reality display systems. The company is working on a novel optical design for AR headsets that addresses one of the most persistent physiological limitations of current AR technology: the vergence-accommodation conflict, which causes eyestrain, discomfort, and headaches in users of extended reality devices and has been a significant barrier to the mass-market adoption of AR wearables.
The vergence-accommodation conflict arises from a mismatch between two distinct visual mechanisms the human eye uses to perceive three-dimensional depth. Vergence refers to the inward or outward rotation of the eyes to converge on objects at different distances. Accommodation refers to the change in the shape of the eye's crystalline lens to bring objects at different distances into focus. In the real world, these two mechanisms are coupled: when you look at a nearby object, your eyes both converge (rotate inward) and accommodate (change focus) to bring it into sharp relief. In conventional AR and VR displays, virtual objects appear to be at different depths based on stereoscopic image disparity (vergence cue), but the actual display screen — where the light is physically emitted — is at a fixed distance from the eye. This forces the accommodation system to remain fixed at the screen distance while the vergence system tracks the apparent depth of virtual objects, breaking the natural coupling that the visual system expects. The result, over time, is fatigue and discomfort that limits how long users can comfortably wear current AR devices.
AllFocal's nano-optical approach aims to resolve this by engineering display optics that can dynamically adjust the focal depth of virtual content to match the vergence distance — allowing accommodation and vergence to remain coupled as they are in natural vision. The company's technology draws on advances in nanostructure-based optical engineering, using precisely manufactured surface structures at the nanometre scale to control how light behaves in ways that conventional optical elements cannot achieve. This is an active area of research across academic institutions and the optics industry, and AllFocal's approach represents a commercially focused push to bring these techniques into manufacturable AR display components.
SpeedInvest, a major European early-stage fund, and Martlet Capital, Cambridge's university-affiliated venture firm, bring strong complementary networks to the raise. The funding will support further development of the optical platform, prototype demonstration, and commercial engagement with AR headset manufacturers.
Sources
Thank you to our Patrons & Partners:
