The Optics Powering AI Glasses Are Getting a Boost from South Korea's LetinAR

["Imagine you’re riding a motorcycle at 160 kilometers per hour when an arrow appears, floating on the road ahead, telling you exactly where to turn. No phone, no dashboard. Just your helmet, and a lens the size of a thumbnail.

This is not a concept video. It’s heading to European roads as early as this year. And it’s one early glimpse of where smart glasses are heading.

Over the past few years, Big Tech has been quietly (and not so quietly) placing its bets. Meta has been selling AI-enabled Ray-Ban glasses since 2023 , Google is building Android XR , and Apple is expected to enter the market . Last week, Samsung was reportedly set to unveil its first AI-capable smart glasses, co-designed with Gentle Monster, at a Galaxy Unpacked event in London this July.

China’s Huawei , Alibaba, Xiaomi and others are all moving too. The numbers reflect the momentum. Global AI glasses shipments surged to 8.7 million units in 2025, up more than 300% from the prior year, and analysts project that figure will cross 15 million this year, per Omdia.

Suppliers and component makers of AI-powered smartglasses are also positioning themselves for what comes next. One of the companies, a South Korean startup called LetinAR , has spent the last decade building the optical technology that could make all of this actually wearable. The LG Electronics-backed startup just secured $18.5 million from Korea Development Bank and the South Korean retail giant’s venture arm, Lotte Ventures, among others, ahead of its planned 2027 IPO in South Korea.

Its previous investor, LG Electronics , has since begun developing its own AI smart glasses, according to a local media report, which is a sign of how seriously South Korea’s largest consumer electronics company takes the category. CEO Jaehyeok Kim and CTO Jeonghun Ha, who have been friends since high school, founded LetinAR together in 2016. LetinAR doesn't make the glasses.

It makes the part that makes the glasses work. The optical module, the tiny lens component that projects images into your field of vision, is what determines whether a pair of smart glasses feels like a sci-fi headset or something you'd actually wear to work, Ha told TechCrunch. It has to be light, thin, and power-efficient, while still delivering a sharp, clear image.

Getting all of that right in a single component, small enough to fit inside a normal-looking frame, is the central engineering challenge of the entire industry. That's what LetinAR is building. “We see AI glasses as that next platform,” Kim said.

“And the optical module is the hardest part to get right as AI glasses makers will need a lens that is thinner, lighter, and more power-efficient than what exists today.” The co-founders said LetineAR wants to be the company those glasses makers call. The company calls its technology PinTILT: a way of arranging tiny optical elements inside a lens so that light is directed precisely where it needs to go, into the user's eye, rather than scattered in every direction. Think of a TV.