Wednesday, May 7 2025
Eindhoven (Netherlands), May 7, 2025 – eyeo today announced it has raised €15 million in seed funding, co-led by imec.xpand, Invest-NL, joined by QBIC fund, High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and Brabant Development Agency (BOM). Eyeo revolutionizes the imaging market for consumer, industrial, XR and security applications by drastically increasing the light sensitivity of image sensors. This breakthrough unlocks picture quality, color accuracy, resolution, and cost efficiency, which was never before possible in smartphones and beyond.
The €15 million raised will drive evaluation kit development, prepare for scale manufacturing of a first sensor product, and expand commercial partnerships to bring this breakthrough imaging technology to market.
For decades, image sensors have relied on the application of red, green, and blue color filters on pixels to make your everyday color picture or video. Color filters, however, block a large portion of the incoming light, and thereby limit the sensitivity of the camera. Furthermore, they limit the scaling of the pixel size below ~0.5 micron. These longstanding issues have stalled advancements in camera technology, constraining both image quality and sensor efficiency. In smartphone cameras, manufacturers have compensated for this limitation by increasing the sensor -and thus camera- size, to capture more light. While this improves low-light performance, it also leads to larger, bulkier cameras. Compact, high-sensitivity image sensors are essential for slimmer smartphones and emerging applications such as robotics and AR/VR devices, where size, power efficiency, and image quality are crucial.
For decades, image sensors have relied on the application of red, green, and blue color filters on pixels to make your everyday color picture or video. Color filters, however, block a large portion of the incoming light, and thereby limit the sensitivity of the camera. Furthermore, they limit the scaling of the pixel size below ~0.5 micron. These longstanding issues have stalled advancements in camera technology, constraining both image quality and sensor efficiency. In smartphone cameras, manufacturers have compensated for this limitation by increasing the sensor -and thus camera- size, to capture more light. While this improves low-light performance, it also leads to larger, bulkier cameras. Compact, high-sensitivity image sensors are essential for slimmer smartphones and emerging applications such as robotics and AR/VR devices, where size, power efficiency, and image quality are crucial.
Eyeo has already established partnerships with leading image sensor manufacturers and foundries to ensure the successful commercialization of its technology. The €15M seed funding will be used to improve its current camera sensor designs further, optimizing the waveguide technology for production scalability and accelerating the development of prototypes for evaluation. By working closely with industry leaders, eyeo aims to bring its advanced camera sensors to a wide range of applications, from smartphones and VR glasses to any compact device that uses color cameras. The first evaluation kits are expected to be available for selected customers within the next two years.
Eyeo is headquartered in Eindhoven (NL), with an R&D office in Leuven (BE).
Eyeo’s founding team combines extensive industry knowledge with imec’s cutting-edge expertise
3D rendering of eyeo’s waveguide structure
Eyeo is redefining imaging with the world’s most advanced nanophotonic color-splitting technology. For the first time, image sensors can capture all of incoming light, overcoming the current 30% limit imposed by decades-old color filter technology. Instead of filtering photons, Eyeo’s breakthrough technology guides them directly to individual pixels, unlocking full light sensitivity and native color fidelity, even in the most challenging conditions. Compatible with any CMOS sensor platform, Eyeo’s single-photon guiding capability also breaks resolution barriers, enabling sub-0.5-micron pixels for ultra-compact, high-performance imaging in XR, industrial, security, and mobile applications where image quality is critical.
This operation benefits from the support from the European Union under the InvestEU Fund
Press Contact:
PR-Agency: Mike Sottak // +1 650 248-9597 // mike@wiredislandpr.com
Eyeo: press@eyeo-imaging.com
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