All Corporate articles
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ArticleKenyan retail startup aims for scale and impact in East Africa
Backed by Japanese and Indian investors and by a French optical retail veteran, Kenyan optical retail startup Mamy Eyewear plans to grow from five stores in Nairobi to over 100 locations in East Africa within five years, leveraging AI-powered eye exams and affordable pricing to address the region’s critical shortage of eye care services.
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News briefsTopcon partners with RemoniHealth on home monitoring
Topcon Healthcare has established a commercial partnership with RemoniHealth, creator of a remote-monitoring platform for in-home diagnostic and monitoring tests in eyecare. In its announcement Topcon speaks of a “pathway” to incorporate RemoniHealth’s services into its own cloud-based platform, Harmony. In the deal’s background, as the company says, is the ...
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Chinese biggest public telecom player invests in AR smart eyewear brand
RayNeo, a Chinese-based AR smart eyewear brand developed by TCL Electronics, has announced that it has secured a new round of funding. Ray Neo did not disclose the amount of the funding, but said that Unicom Innovation, an investment vehicle for China Mobile, was among the investors. The company stressed ...
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Lenskart invests in South Korea, Thailand
Fresh from its successful IPO, Indian-based retailer Lenskart is investing 186 million indian rupees (€1.8m) to acquire a 29 percent stake in iiNeer, a South Korean start-up developing eye-testing and lens-cutting equipment for optical stores. The move, which was executed by Lenskart Singapore, is expected to improve operating efficiencies and ...
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ArticleCooper announces strategic review, 5% uptick in annual CVI sales
CooperVision reported Q4 sales of $709.6 million, up 4.6% year-on-year, with growth driven by the Americas region and strong performance from its MyDay contact lens portfolio. CooperCompanies stock price shot up after the group announced that it was conducting a strategic business review, seemingly in response to activist investor pressures.
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ArticleEssilorLuxottica wearables chief steps down
Rocco Basilico, Chief Wearables Officer at EssilorLuxottica, will be leaving the group at the start of next year, Reuters revealed on Monday. The information was confirmed to the press agency by EssilorLuxottica: “After six years supporting our smart eyewear journey, Rocco Basilico has decided to pursue his personal interests outside ...
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Topcon share delists from TSE as group completes ownership change
Topcon Corporation shares delisted yesterday from the prime market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange following the approval of the group’s share consolidation proposals at the extraordinary general shareholders meeting on Nov. 11, 2025. As we reported in March, US-based private equity firm KKR has become the Japanese group’s main shareholder, ...
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EssilorLuxottica forms interdisciplinary scientific advisory committee
EssilorLuxottica has announced the creation of a Scientific Advisory Committee, composed of five scientists working in the fields of physics, mathematics, otolaryngology (study of the the ear, nose, and throat and related parts of the head and neck), ophthalmology and bioethics. They are Pr. Alain Aspect (Nobel Laureate and Wolf ...
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ArticleMICROOLED smart eyewear business taken over by former CEO and founder
MICROOLED’s former CEO has taken over the company’s smart eyewear brands ActiveLook and Engo to focus exclusively on AR sports glasses, while the French microdisplay manufacturer refocuses on B2B markets including defense and medical equipment and raises more funds.
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KITS EYECARE opens second store, secures C$15m lending facility
KITS EYECARE, the Canadian-based e-tailer, will be opening in Q1 2026 a 230-square-meter store in Toronto, its second brick-and-mortar location. The decision to open a new store, which also includes a café space, is grounded in the success of the Vancouver flagship shop, the company explained: opened in 2021, the ...
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ArticleZEISS leverages vision care synergies in smart eyewear, ophthalmology
ZEISS has announced the creation of a new strategic business unit called ZEISS Extended Reality which, combined with ZEISS Vision Care, will make up the group’s Consumer Markets segment. Established last month, ZEISS Extended Reality will unite in one division the different teams that have been working on extended reality ...
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French Essilux workers start three-day strike
FO Metaux, a French trade union federation, has announced that 9,000 employees of EssilorLuxottica in France will go on a three-day strike from Nov. 27, 2025, asking for higher wages and pointing to the group’s record sales and to the top management team’s compensation package. It is the first time ...
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EssilorLuxottica reportedly offering to take a 5-10% stake in Armani
EssilorLuxottica has offered to buy a 5 to 10 percent stake in Armani, Il Sole 24 Ore reported on Nov. 22, quoting unnamed sources. The eyewear group would, however, not be interested in taking an active role in the management of Armani, according to the Italian financial newspaper. As previously ...
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Lenskart shares trade slightly up in stock exchange debut
Following the group’s largely oversubscribed Initial Public Offering (IPO), Lenskart’s shares started trading yesterday morning on two Indian stock exchanges at a unit price of 395 rupees (€3.9), down 1.7 percent from the IPO price. Their value picked up thereafter and seems to have settled at around 410 rupees (€4.0) ...
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ArticleLenskart’s 240x earnings valuation raises some eyebrows
Indian eyewear retailer Lenskart’s IPO was oversubscribed 1.70 times after the second trading day, with institutional investors including Singapore’s government and Norway’s pension fund participating in a €710 million offering that values the company at €6.8 billion.
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ArticleAllsides set to open NY flagship as it expands capacity, fine-tunes scanner technology
Allsides, an Italian 3D scanner startup that is also active in the eyewear sector, is planning to open new scanning centers in the US, Europe and Asia in coming months and is working to fine-tune its technology, which is rooted in the application of artificial intelligence to images. The expansion ...
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ArticleAspiring smart-glasses producer raises $250m
The start-up known as Sesame, or Sesame AI, has raised $250 million in Series B funding, according to TechCrunch. The round was led by Spark Capital and Sequoia Capital, with undisclosed other investors taking part. Sesame was founded in 2023 but came to public attention this past February, when it ...
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Lenskart IPO kicks off on Oct. 31
Indian-based optical retail group Lenskart’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) is scheduled to take place from Oct. 31 to Nov.4 with institutional investors getting a head start on Oct. 30. The group has set a price range of between 382 and 402 rupees (€3.7-€3.9) per share corresponding to a maximum fundraising ...
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ArticleTopcon launches global oculomics platform, bolsters Harmony in Europe
Hardly a week goes by without Topcon Healthcare, a US subsidiary of Japan-based Topcon Corporation, announcing a new acquisition or initiative in the domain of oculomics, i.e. “the blending of big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and ocular imaging to identify retinal biomarkers of systemic disease” by the definition of ...
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ArticleModo gets $100m cash injection
House of Modo, the US-Italo group behind the Modo and Eco eyewear brands, has raised $100 million in a minority investment round led by Valiant Asset Management, an alternative credit investment firm focusing on the Western European corporate middle market and established in London in 2023. House of ...
