SINGAPORE—VisionBanker, a Singapore-based startup that aims to help improve the vision of global consumers through technology, last week announced plans to raise $10 million through a token sale. A pre-sale is currently ongoing, with public sales to be launched in Q4 of 2019, the company said in a statement. VisionBanker is developing ways to use technologies such as blockchain, mobile apps and facial recognition to help global consumers get access to better-fitting eyewear, while incentivizing them through a token system (VBK tokens) to have regular eye check-ups. Eyecare professionals are also incentivized through tokens to provide answers to questions posed by the app's users, thus creating a decentralized, distributed and public ledger that allows consumers to solve their eyecare needs easily, the company said. All data will be stored on a blockchain, and can be used to help governments and organizations with an interest in eye health research make decisions through actual, anonymized data, the company said.

“Myopia is a serious problem globally, with about 50 per cent of the developed world needing glasses,” noted VisionBanker CEO Dato Seri David Sew. “This is especially so in Asia, and specifically in our backyard Southeast Asia. We've seen studies and heard of how poor eyecare can lead to poorer education and even lead to safety issues. With the eyecare fitting process fundamentally unchanged for centuries, we wanted to use new technologies to help consumers around the world have a more convenient and easier time when improving their vision.”

VisionBanker was founded in Q4 2018 by the team behind SpecTruck, led by Dato Seri David Sew. Since 2017,

SpecTruck is the first One-Stop Mobile Optical concept stall in Malaysia, serving both local communities in both urban and rural areas to provide badly-needed eyecare to the community. By end 2019, SpecTruck will have served over 100,000 people in Malaysia, including schoolchildren, working adults and the elderly, through partnerships with state education agencies and corporate and government organizations in Malaysia. All 100,000 SpecTruck customers will be given a free two-year subscription to the VisionBanker App once it is launched, which will serve as the active database for VisionBanker.

With VisionBanker, consumers can store their eyesight records on the blockchain after being checked by an optometrist, allowing them to easily check their eyesight data in future if they change optical providers and also to track their progress over time. A Virtual Try-On (VTO) process will also allow consumers to use facial recognition technology to analyze the geometry of their faces and virtually try on different frames to find the best fit.

Development of the VisionBanker app is expected to be completed and launched in 2020 with an Asian-centric approach, led by countries in Southeast Asia. It will first launch in Q2 2020 Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, followed by China, Hong Kong and Taiwan in Q3 2020, Japan, Korea, Cambodia and the Philippines in Q4 2020, followed by the rest of the world from 2021 onwards, VisionBanker said.

The company said it aims to collect $12 million in revenue, growing to $60 million by the fifth year, through a consumer-subscription model priced based on affordability in each country, as well as by providing anonymized eyecare data to medical, research, optometric and insurance organizations.