XPANCEO

Deeptech · Wearables · Healthtech

Funding

XPANCEO closes $250M Series A, becomes UAE's 12th unicorn

The Dubai startup's smart contact lens packs AR displays, health sensors and night vision onto a device thinner than a human hair.

• XPANCEO closed a $250 million Series A led by Opportunity Venture (Asia), valuing the Dubai deep-tech firm at $1.35 billion and making it the UAE's 12th unicorn.
• Co-founded in 2019 by physicist Valentyn S. Volkov and entrepreneur Roman Axelrod, XPANCEO is building a multifunctional smart contact lens meant to replace a host of personal gadgets with one wearable.
• The patented lens uses nanophotonic micro-displays that project directly onto the retina, delivering a 30-degree AR field of view while drawing just 1-3 microwatts of power.
• Beyond AR visuals, the lens is engineered for health diagnostics, tracking intraocular pressure for glaucoma and analyzing tear fluid for biomarkers like glucose, cortisol and other hormones.
• XPANCEO has produced 15 working prototypes and contributed to 110 scientific publications, a pace the company attributes to an AI-driven R&D process.
• The round follows a $40 million seed from the same lead investor and preceded a manufacturing partnership with ophthalmic materials maker Contamac to prepare the lens for scalable production.
• The deal shows Gulf capital increasingly backing frontier hardware bets beyond software and fintech, treating wearable deep-tech as a path to billion-dollar valuations.