A visitor wears smart glasses at the 6th China International Consumer Products Expo CICPE held in Haikou, Hainan Province, southern China, on April 13, 2026.
Zhang Liyun | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images
Will Wang, CEO of Chinese smart glasses startup Even Realities, the country’s newest unicorn, said startups making consumer electronics are more likely to become a second Apple in Shenzhen than in Silicon Valley.
“If we want to create a future around consumer electronics, and maybe we really want to build the next Apple, we need to be in the heart of hardware, which is Shenzhen,” Wang told CNBC’s Chery Kang on Wednesday, citing the city’s rich engineering talent pool and supply chain advantages.
The Shenzhen-based company announced on Monday that it had raised $150 million from investors including Meituan and Tencent at a valuation of $1 billion. Wang, who was involved in the development and mass production of the Apple Watch and iPhone at Apple from 2016 to 2018, is paying attention to the AI wearable market, which is dominated by Metaplatform.
Wang said there has been some disincentive in Silicon Valley for founders to develop hardware products, avoiding longer development cycles, lower profit upside and inevitable supply chain hurdles compared to AI applications.
“Hardware guys don’t seem to be getting paid as much in Silicon Valley anymore,” he said, adding that talent and capital is instead “intensively” flowing into AI and software agents. “We’re seeing fewer and fewer consumer electronics startups and talented companies around Silicon Valley.”
But across the Pacific, Shenzhen’s talent pool is proving more vibrant, with the city’s cluster of phone, drone and consumer electronics manufacturers producing a rich pool of mechanical, electrical and optical engineers, Wang said.
Shenzhen is home to many of China’s biggest technology companies, including Tencent, Huawei, drone maker DJI and electric car giant BYD, and continues to attract a new generation of founders building companies from camera maker Insta360 to robotics company UBTech.
However, more than half of Even Realities’ users are based in the United States, which remains an important market for startups looking to expand globally.
Several Chinese startups are eyeing AI-related consumer hardware and are betting on the country’s manufacturing depth to offset the US lead in software.
Even Reality’s domestic rival Lokid is valued at $2.58 billion after raising money from investors including Singapore state investor Temasek, while smaller Reineo is valued at $239.9 million, according to Pitchbook.
Asked whether the startup was intentionally raising money only from investors from China, Wang said Chinese backers were “just moving fast and close to us,” but said the next round would target “more global investors” to help expand overseas.
Even Realities is primarily funded by Chinese venture firms including CDH Investments, Monolith Management, and CVC Capital, and in January raised an undisclosed amount from Unicorn Capital Partners and Cyanhill Capital.
The company, founded in 2023, launched the Even G2 smart glasses late last year, alongside the Even R1, a ring that controls the display. Unlike Meta’s camera-equipped Ray-Ban product line, the G2 has no camera or recording hardware and provides notifications, navigation, and live translation through a heads-up display on the lens.
—CNBC’s Chery Kang and Jenny Lee contributed to this report.
