Roman Axelrod is the Founder and Managing Associate of XPANCEO. He has a background in constructing firms throughout laptop imaginative and prescient, esports, and fintech, with expertise increasing operations into Western Europe, the US, and the Asia-Pacific area. Axelrod has negotiated and structured offers totaling over $5 billion and led three profitable exits.
XPANCEO is growing a next-generation good contact lens that goals to interchange conventional computing units by seamlessly merging the actual and digital worlds right into a single prolonged actuality expertise. The corporate brings collectively main scientists, engineers, and executives to push the boundaries of human-technology interplay past the boundaries of silicon-based techniques. XPANCEO’s work is pushed by a tradition of innovation, excellence, and influence—targeted on creating elegant, high-performance options that prioritize motion, embrace challenges, and try to make a significant distinction for each individuals and the planet.
What impressed you to discovered XPANCEO, and what was the preliminary “aha” second that satisfied you good contact lenses have been the following frontier in computing?
For years, it was evident to me that our present computing units — fragile, cumbersome, and aesthetically missing — have been relics of a bygone period. Give it some thought. It doesn’t take a lot to appreciate that they maintain us again from fulfilling humanity’s loftiest ambitions, comparable to deeply exploring area and considerably extending human lifespans. Reaching such feats requires a technological leap, not mere incremental upgrades. Personally, I envision the following laptop as one thing that, powered by AI, integrates seamlessly into our surroundings and could be effortlessly managed with our minds.
This imaginative and prescient crystallized after I was 31, throughout a chaotic condominium renovation. My belongings have been stacked haphazardly, obstructing the TV, rendering even easy pleasures like taking part in PlayStation unattainable. Pissed off, I imagined projecting the sport onto the ceiling, with WhatsApp open in a single nook and Excel sprawled throughout the ground. That was the second it struck me. The world wanted an AI-powered XR gadget that had a revolutionary, final type issue. But, for weeks, I grappled with figuring out what that type issue might be.
That wrestle created monumental despair. Till, one late night time on the workplace — feeling mentally and emotionally drained, in fact — I made a decision to go house, and as I walked down the hall and mindlessly scrolled by Pinterest, a picture of a feminine astronaut caught my eye. Her vivid eyes, framed by a helmet displaying a celestial scene with orbiting planets, utterly captivated me. In that instantaneous, it grew to become clear. This gadget wanted to be a chic, weightless contact lens that would seamlessly mix into life. Overwhelmed by this realization, I sank to the workplace ground and commenced researching obsessively. That was the true genesis of XPANCEO.
XPANCEO’s mission goes far past wearable tech—it is about redefining human-computer interplay. How do you envision that transformation taking part in out over the following 5–10 years?
I’m a agency believer in transhumanism — the mixing of biology and expertise to transcend our present limitations. This good points further relevance as a result of, when contemplating humanity’s bold objectives for the following century — comparable to colonizing area or considerably extending our life expectancy — it’s greater than evident that our current expertise gained’t suffice.
The fusion of people and expertise will, essentially and completely, redefine our capabilities. Over the following many years, as extra firms blur the road between biology and expertise, I foresee this integration enabling us to change into a species with talents far past our present state. This might doubtlessly remodel us into a really interplanetary and enhanced civilization.
On this regard, we anticipate that our product will finally change into mainstream. Whereas, initially, our audience contains people already accustomed to carrying contact lenses and the evident early-adopters, we challenge that our person base will develop from 15,000 in 2027 to 10 million by 2032.
Due to these excessive ambitions, security stays our paramount concern. On condition that our good contact lens is a medical gadget, it should endure rigorous regulatory approval processes earlier than it may be worn by anybody. These processes embody a number of phases, together with evaluating biocompatibility and present process medical trials in managed environments. Just like different medical developments, the lens is being extensively examined to make sure security and efficacy. With out assembly stringent requirements, it won’t be able to achieve the market.
Nonetheless, these regulatory processes could be time-consuming, and our market availability timeline closely depends upon them. Whereas we can not specify a precise launch yr, we’re actively pursuing the required approvals. We plan to start pre-clinical trials for sure prototypes this yr and intention to start out testing the entire contact lens with all options by the top of 2026. Solely after these trials are accomplished efficiently will the lens be prepared for market launch.
What are the core technological breakthroughs that make an invisible, weightless good contact lens even potential at this time, when it was science fiction only a few years in the past?
The materialization of our good contact lens prototypes stems from a confluence of cutting-edge applied sciences and a paradigm shift in method. Somewhat than miniaturizing parts from current units, we’ve targeted on implementing next-generation applied sciences particularly designed for ultra-small-scale purposes.
Nonetheless, it’s not solely about measurement. An excellent more durable problem to crack is combining optical efficiency with transparency and performance — all in one thing you may put on in your eye. Conventional supplies can’t ship that. You want one thing that may let gentle by like glass, information it like fiber optics, and nonetheless carry electrical indicators like a microchip. Right here’s the place 2D supplies are available in. Their excessive thinness offers them nearly excellent transparency, whereas their optical properties — as an example, a excessive refractive index — allow us to manipulate lights in ways in which merely weren’t potential earlier than at this scale. These supplies are important for creating parts which are small and light-weight sufficient to suit right into a contact lens whereas sustaining excessive efficiency.
One other key component to contemplate is anisotropy, which is the power of those supplies to behave otherwise relying on the path of sunshine or present. It’s a bit like wooden grain — it cuts simply a technique and resists the opposite. We use this to construct microscopic buildings that may management gentle very exactly, enabling issues like waveguides contained in the lens — successfully roads for gentle — with out distortion or scattering.
This marks a brand new period in materials science, and it’s allowed us to resolve issues that have been beforehand thought unattainable. How do you embed electronics in a clear object? How do you shrink down optical techniques with out dropping operate? How do you make all of it weightless, seamless, and wearable? In addition to higher engineering, you want higher supplies, and that’s what we’ve executed.
This astonishing work is led by my co-founder, Dr. Valentyn Volkov. He’s a globally acknowledged knowledgeable in nano-optics and nanophotonics. His insights, mixed with AI-assisted design, have made it potential to construct techniques which are smaller, essentially smarter, and extra environment friendly. This manner, we’re utterly reimagining what a contact lens can do and rewriting the science behind it, paving the way in which for myriad further purposes in any trade you may consider.
Your work depends closely on superior 2D supplies and photonics. Might you stroll us by the science behind how these lenses show info or course of information?
Photonics is important for picture projection, notably nanophotonics, given the minuscule scale concerned. Inserting a picture supply instantly on the contact lens is extraordinarily, extraordinarily troublesome, because the human eye can’t concentrate on such proximity. And there are two potential approaches: both projecting the picture ahead onto a aircraft the place the attention can focus, or sending pre-focused gentle beams instantly into the attention. First, we developed an answer that progressively reduces the exterior picture supply to a measurement similar to good glasses, projecting the picture ahead onto a aircraft the place the attention can focus.
After, we’ve developed a brand new prototype the place the picture supply is built-in instantly into the contact lens. This employs a distinct optical system. As an alternative of projecting the picture ahead, it focuses gentle beams and directs them straight onto the retina, already targeted. This course of is named collimation.
The good lens, itself, is extraordinarily compact, so we pair it with a companion gadget, which is roughly the dimensions of an everyday contact lens case. This gadget serves a number of features — it fees the lens and handles information processing. This design permits the lens to stay light-weight whereas nonetheless supporting superior options.
Final however not least, the revolutionary use of 2D supplies permits us to combine electronics into the lens with out compromising its transparency or flexibility, one thing important to make it each purposeful and comfy for the wearer.
How does XPANCEO method the problem of miniaturization—particularly becoming complicated computing capabilities into one thing smaller than a grain of rice?
As I mentioned earlier, at XPANCEO, we transcend squeezing current applied sciences right into a smaller type issue. Somewhat than taking components from bigger units, we concentrate on supplies and applied sciences which are constructed for small-scale use from the get-go.
Certainly one of our key breakthroughs, as talked about, has been using 2D supplies. As a result of these are versatile and conductive, they are perfect for creating tiny, light-weight parts that also carry out at a excessive degree.
Our scientific staff, led by Dr. Volkov, has been combining these supplies with advances in nanophotonics. By doing so, we’ve been in a position to design techniques that function effectively even at a microscopic scale.
I have to comment and emphasize that conventional tech, like what’s utilized in smartphones and laptops, is just too cumbersome and inefficient for one thing the dimensions of a contact lens. Through the use of these next-generation supplies, we’ve been in a position to break previous these limitations, and develop one thing actually groundbreaking.
In your view, why is XR—particularly immersive, real-time interplay—so important for advancing synthetic intelligence past present limitations?
The present state of AI has led to loads of hype, however on the subject of real-world purposes, we’re hitting a wall. Regardless of the guarantees of a revolution, normal AI nonetheless struggles to adapt to the complexity of the actual world. The fashions we depend on can shortly change into outdated, since AI lacks real-time studying and human-like understanding of the context of the world. Although we’ve extra computational energy than ever, we’re nonetheless, from my notion, not getting nearer to attaining human-like intelligence.
The place AI excels, although, is in slender, structured duties. Issues like chess, coding, or different issues which have clear guidelines and outcomes and are comparatively straightforward to optimize. Nonetheless, these capabilities don’t translate to extra nuanced, day-to-day human challenges. As an example, automation breakthroughs are spectacular, however they don’t make AI actually “clever,” for therefore to say, they merely make it higher at one particular factor. I imagine the core problem with that is that AI doesn’t expertise the world in the identical means people do. It operates based mostly on uncooked information, not lived experiences. It’s that easy.
That is the place XR (prolonged actuality) might be the lacking hyperlink. By immersing AI in the actual world — or no less than a digital world that mirrors it — XR can supply a means for AI to be taught extra dynamically. Not like static datasets, XR creates an interactive surroundings the place AI can interact and adapt in actual time, constructing a form of instinct that goes past uncooked information. The way forward for AI may not lie merely in constructing greater fashions, however in giving these fashions the power to be taught from and work together with the world round them in a means that’s extra akin to how people be taught.
Past well being monitoring and content material consumption, what are among the most compelling use circumstances you foresee for XPANCEO’s good lenses throughout industries?
XPANCEO’s good lenses go far past well being monitoring or content material consumption. Our intention and imaginative and prescient is that they are going to redefine whole industries. By combining cutting-edge options like night time imaginative and prescient, zoom, and real-time well being monitoring, these lenses will seamlessly combine into each day life, enhancing routine duties with out disruption.
The potential influence extends to fields like automation, manufacturing, and fintech. In automation, for instance, our lenses may improve operational security by offering real-time information. In fintech, biometric transactions change into a actuality, including each safety and ease to monetary processes. For navigation, the lenses supply hands-free, context-aware steerage, which utterly transforms how we work together with the world round us.
The advantages may even lengthen to area exploration. Actually, on this sector, the lenses supply a pure match, giving astronauts instantaneous entry to mission-critical info. With 80% of astronauts already carrying contact lenses, this expertise aligns seamlessly with their current wants.
The medical prospects are equally transformative. XPANCEO’s lenses can help people managing diabetes, stress, dry eye syndrome, and strabismus. Moreover, they will improve imaginative and prescient for many who are visually impaired and supply shade imaginative and prescient for the color-blind. In low-light environments, our lenses enhance security, whereas our reasonably priced neural interface gives a means for people with paralysis to regulate the lenses non-invasively, making a major distinction in communication and accessibility, notably for these with extreme mobility impairments. That is one other proof of the strong social influence we’re set to create.
Do you envision a future the place your lenses may change into the default computing interface—changing smartphones completely? What must occur for that to change into actuality?
The potential of good contact lenses to change into the following computing interface is simple. Their seamless integration into each day life makes them much more intuitive than at this time’s smartphones, eliminating the necessity for a further gadget. But, I have to say that even when smartphones fade into the background, different instruments — comparable to audio system, controllers, and specialised units — will proceed to play important roles throughout industries. This might be in a big selection of industries — automotive, aerospace, healthcare, and past.
Trying again on the evolution of computing, we’ve already seen how smartphones have remodeled our lives by consolidating many duties as soon as reserved for desktop computer systems. However regardless of the rise of smartphones, desktop computer systems stay indispensable for sure duties and features. What smartphones did was make a brand new type of computing extensively accessible, creating a regular that when appeared unimaginable.
In an identical means, good contact lenses gained’t change the whole lot. As an alternative, they are going to redefine the methods we work together with expertise. It is going to proceed to evolve into types that improve human capabilities, making what was as soon as thought-about futuristic merely a part of how we reside and work. On the finish of the day, expertise just isn’t solely about changing outdated instruments. It’s, at its core, about increasing the chances of how we expertise the world.
XPANCEO talks about ‘inherent class’ and ‘embracing challenges.’ How do these values present up in day-to-day decision-making and product design?
Magnificence, to us, is greater than floor or aesthetic magnificence — it’s the essence of how each side of an organization operates — how your staff presents itself, how seamless your buyer interactions are, and the tempo at which assist is delivered.
Take Apple, as an example. Their merchandise and design rules radiate class in each nook of their operation — from the minimalism of their brand to the cautious and smooth design of their shops. Whereas our product could not mirror theirs, our philosophy is similar. We got down to create an expertise that feels intuitive, cohesive, and effortlessly built-in into each day life.
As we navigate the quickly evolving tech panorama, we acknowledge that innovation, particularly on the leading edge, usually requires working by powerful issues that may appear insurmountable. Nonetheless, for us, these challenges are what propel us ahead.
To handle these, the strategy we depend on is rooted in speculation testing. We don’t let the size of an issue overwhelm us, we embrace it as an opportunity to discover myriad options. This iterative course of, regularly, results in surprising breakthroughs and pushes the boundaries of what we will obtain.
In a world the place digital interfaces are fairly actually turning into a part of our biology, how do you strike the correct steadiness between augmentation and intrusion?
The function of expertise in our lives is to boost, not hinder. Devices — and all technological developments, for this matter — ought to enhance how we reside, not change into an obstruction. But, as we push the boundaries of innovation, we face legitimate considerations concerning the potential for digital interfaces to change into invasive. At XPANCEO, even when we’re nonetheless within the R&D part, we’re already contemplating these challenges.
Take the good contact lens, for instance. The combination of a digicam inside the lens raises apparent privateness considerations, in addition to the potential for misuse. There are jokes about college students utilizing it to cheat throughout exams and real considerations about XR options being activated in unsafe eventualities, like whereas driving or close to the subway tracks. These are legitimate preoccupations that we take very severely.
Nonetheless, it’s essential to keep in mind that our good contact lens just isn’t merely an XR gadget. It’s powered by AI, which suggests we will design the lens with built-in algorithms to make sure security and respect for privateness. These algorithms can implement needed boundaries, making certain that the expertise stays inside authorized and moral tips. As an example, simply as we discourage texting whereas driving, the lens might be designed to limit utilization in harmful eventualities, stopping distractions in context like driving or when close to doubtlessly hazardous environments.
Whereas it’s true that expertise can by no means totally eradicate misuse — individuals nonetheless use smartphones in methods and conditions they shouldn’t — the objective is to offer safeguards that encourage accountable utilization. As these applied sciences evolve and change into a extra pure a part of on a regular basis life, public notion will probably shift. Gadgets like good contact lenses will change into much less of an intrusion and extra of an unobtrusive enhancement, seamlessly integrating into our lives whereas respecting each private freedom and societal norms.
If XPANCEO achieves its full imaginative and prescient, how will the typical individual’s relationship with expertise change?
On the coronary heart of XPANCEO’s mission is a want to rework the very essence of how we work together with expertise. My motivation, thus, is about reinventing the connection between people and the tech instruments we use. I’m a agency believer that expertise, at its greatest, has the potential to make us more healthy, happier, and simpler in each side of life.
Nonetheless, the present technology of devices falls wanting fulfilling the profound ambitions we’ve for the longer term. At XPANCEO, we see what we’re engaged on because the daybreak of a brand new technological period, a future the place expertise seamlessly integrates into our lives as an invisible but indispensable part, enhancing our capabilities and turning into an extension of our minds and our bodies.
After we succeed, expertise is not going to be one thing we merely “use,” however one thing we’re. It is going to work in concord with us to achieve new dimensions of our potential that we hadn’t even imagined earlier than. This shift will redefine what it means to reside, and utterly bolster the very core of who we’re.
Thanks for the good interview, readers who want to be taught extra ought to go to XPANCEO.