VisionBanker, a startup that aims to help improve the vision of global consumers through technology, recently announced that they plan to raise $10 million through a token sale, with a projected revenue of $12 million across three years.

It aims to tap on the growing eyecare market, which is expected to be worth $182 billion by 2023, by using technologies such as Blockchain, mobile apps and facial recognition to help global consumers get better access to better-fitting eyecare, while incentivizing them through a token system (VBK tokens) to do regular eye check-ups.

At the same time, optometric 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 easily solve their eyecare needs.

All these data will be stored on Blockchain technology, and can be used to help governments and organizations with an interest in eye health research and make decisions through actual and anonymous data.

It was founded in Q4 2018 by the team behind SpecTruck and led by Dato Seri David Sew, where SpecTruck is the first one-stop mobile optical concept stall in Malaysia, serving local communities in both urban and rural areas to provide badly-needed eyecare to the community since 2017.

With VisionBanker, consumers can store customers’ eyesight records on Blockchain technology after being checked by an optometrist, allowing consumers to easily check their eyesight data in future, should they change opticians and also to track their progress over time.

A Virtual Try-On (VTO) process will also allow consumers to tap on Facial Recognition technology to analyze the geometry of their faces and virtually try on different frames to find the best fit. Facial recognition technology services are supported by Microsoft and NEC.

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