Azalea Vision wins €7.5M EIC award to take smart contact lens into clinics
Azalea Vision, a Belgian healthtech startup, has secured up to €7.5 million from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator to move its medical-grade smart contact lens into clinical development.
The package blends a €2.5 million non-dilutive grant with a planned €5 million equity investment from the EIC Fund. Azalea was the only Belgian company selected in this round.
The startup says its core platform works and technical validation is nearly complete, making clinical trials the logical next step.
The lens targets millions of people living with irregular corneas, higher-order aberrations, and presbyopia. It could also serve as a biosensing platform, measuring biomarkers in tears.
The award covers technology validation, not clinical success. Turning a proven device into a certified medical product is a long, high-risk path.
Azalea is now courting strategic and financial investors across Europe and the US to co-invest alongside the EIC Fund in its next round — meaning the €7.5 million alone won't carry it to market.
Now at breakout stage, Azalea Vision is betting that non-dilutive government backing can carry a deep-tech medical device through its riskiest phase — clinical development — where the EIC Fund's willingness to stake its own equity, as an investment fund rather than a pure grant-maker, offers private co-investors a rare de-risked entry point.
Read more: finanznachrichten.de
Image credit: Azalea Vision
