Solving America's Eye Care Crisis: Eyebot Raises $20MM Series A

America faces an eye care accessibility crisis. While demand for vision services is increasing each year, the eye doctor workforce is declining, creating a serious workforce inadequacy gap. This translates to nearly 8,000 fewer eye doctors, in a US vision care market worth over $27 billion annually. For everyday Americans, a routine eye care appointment to update a prescription might take weeks to schedule.

Matthias Hofmann and Jack Moldave started Eyebot to address this crisis. Matthias's journey began nearly 10 years ago at EyeNetra, where he built the first mobile phone-based vision test platform. While usability limitations prevented EyeNetra’s technology from making a meaningful dent in the eye care shortage, Matthias maintained curiosity about the problem years later. After joining Formlabs and mastering precision hardware engineering, he combined forces with mechanical engineer Jack Moldave to tackle the problem with a new approach. The two founders represent a rare intersection of optical physics knowledge, hardware design mastery, and deep understanding of the barriers to accessible eye care.

Eyebot’s solution transforms eye care delivery through automated retail kiosks that provide 90-second vision tests. Using advanced optical engineering and hardware automation, Eyebot’s technology combines refraction measurement, advanced imaging, and infrared analysis to deliver a clinically accurate vision test. Every test is reviewed by a licensed eye doctor and final prescriptions are sent to the patient within 24 hours. Deployed in partnership with eyewear retailers, the kiosks represent an opportunity to help retailers earn customers while making it dramatically easier for end users to get a prescription.

Matthias and Jack exemplify traits we love in founders: an ethos of design-driven innovation and deep hardware acumen, applied to fundamental infrastructure problems. Baukunst led Eyebot’s pre-seed round, and are thrilled that the team has now raised $20MM in Series A funding from General Catalyst to begin deploying their solution with select partners.

Within a few years, Matthias and the Eyebot team imagine most Americans will be a short drive away from an Eyebot kiosk, where they’ll be able to update their prescription conveniently. We are proud to back a team working to expand access and lower cost barriers to essential care.

Read more about Eyebot's funding announcement on Axios.