Venture Capital Firms

Private Investor Leads $29.5 Million in Series AA Funding for Opthonix

Based in San Diego, California, the vision correction manufacturer, Opthonix, has announced that a new undisclosed private investor has led a $29.5 million investment in series AA funding with the company’s existing investors participating in the funding. The participating investors include Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, Enterprise Partners, DAG Ventures, Gund Investment Corporation, InterWest Partners, Trex Enterprises, and Wasatch Advisors.

Opthonix is a company that produces revolutionary vision correction products which provide wearers sharp and crisp vision. The key to Opthonix’s success is its revolutionary iZon product line, which is a series of lenses that enables the wearers of these lenses to see the world in a crisper and high-definition way. What will further seal Opthonix’s success with this product is that this is the proprietary technology of Opthonix and it is the first lens of its kind to receive a patent. Some of the problems with people’s vision that the iZon lens can correct are daytime glare, which can be a major problem as people are driving in the early morning or late afternoon to early evening, especially after rains when the pavement is still wet; night time glare, which can cause people with glasses to have starburst glare or halos around headlights of other cars, impairing their vision of the road; enabling the wearer to see better in low light conditions and see dark objects at dusk or dawn, such as a deer or other large animal dashing across the road; etc.

According to Stephen Osbaldeston, CEO of Opthonix, the team at Opthonix is very happy to have this new private investor leading this round of funding, which will help the company to continue its research to create better lenses for the visually impaired. The fact that so many of the major vc firms are investing in Opthonix is a testament to the growth of the company and the intellectual property owned by Opthonix has good market potential. Mr. Osbaldeston also added that the University of Illinois at Chicago has conducted several clinical studies, the findings of which have validated the claim that the iZon ML lens does improve the vision of the patient, including glare, low light and low contrast conditions. Furthermore the lens allows the patient to even see and read signs from longer distances than what the patient’s naked eye would otherwise allow.

Founded in 1985, Enterprise Partners is a vc firm that has always focused mainly on businesses located in Southern California. Since its founding, Enterprise Partners has participated in the creation of over 150 new companies and the vc firm is currently in its sixth funding. The partners at Enterprise Partners are also entrepreneurs, who have the experience in building companies and provide unique information to entrepreneurs who are about to take on a venture. The people at Enterprise Partners provide not only financial, but legal, product development, marketing and operations support to portfolio companies. At Enterprise Partners, management matters. It does not matter if the product is top of the line and has great potential to disrupt the market, if the company has a poor management team, it will not perform well. It is key for a company seeking funding from Enterprise Partners to have a good management team who can get things done. Some other companies in Enterprise Partners’ portfolio include Anaborex, Genomics, Devicescape, Expresso, IdenTrust, Muze, Quartics, and others.

DAG Ventures stands for Doug Ackerman and Goodrich and the vc firm is one of the leading vc firms which invests in all markets, and is based in Palo Alto, California. The vc firm also has an amazing portfolio, with some well known companies, such as Plaxo, BlueLane, Matrix Memory, and Podshow.

Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (KPCB) is based in Menlo Park, California and also has offices in China. KPCB is a large vc firm that is dedicated to the success of its portfolio companies and KPCB invests in both public and private companies. Some of the companies that KPCB has in its portfolio include 3-V BioSciences, 3DV Systems, 3VR Security, Aerohive, and others.

For more information about Opthonix, click here.

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