XREAL, the Beijing-based AR glasses maker, announced it has raised $100 million in a recent funding round.
The News
Xreal co-founder and CEO Chi Xu broke the news on Bloomberg Television, noting the company secured funding from “supply chain partners” in addition to other backers, which Xu declined to disclose.
According to Crunchbase data, the company has raised a total of $433 million in outside funding since its founding in 2017.
Its second most recent funding round came in May 2025 when Xreal secured ¥200 million RMB (~$28.6 million USD), led by Pudong Venture Capital. The startup is now said to be valued at $1 billion.
This follows the unveiling of ROG XREAL R1, a pair of 240Hz “gaming glasses” built in collaboration with Asus Republic of Gamers, and the announcement that Google is extending its partnership with Xreal, positioning it as a lead hardware partner for the Android XR ecosystem.
Xu told Bloomberg Television that its current Android XR glasses, Project Aura, is on schedule for release this year.
My Take
I’ve never been particularly enthused with the sort of optics Xreal relies on in all of its AR specs, mostly because when I think of AR glasses of the near future, I think of something indistinguishable from regular glasses. To me, Xreal’s existence hinges on an interesting technological byway, and doesn’t really offer the answer to the actual problem.
That said, Xreal’s birdbath and newer flat prism optics (seen on XREAL One Pro and detailed by Karl Guttag) provide good clarity, okay brightness, and a comparatively wide field of view (FOV)—wider than most waveguide optics can. All of that at a per-unit price that is much cheaper than waveguides at comparable specs—the reason it can even sell AR consumer glasses this early in the first place.
That, and the company clearly isn’t struggling either, considering it’s existed for nearly a decade now, and has clearly shown it can attract outside funding on the regular in addition to closing partnerships with Google and Asus.
Still, birdbath and its newer flat prim optics make for a bulkier overall package, which is why you won’t often see marketing material focusing on the thing’s side profile with an actual person—they sit a few centimeters farther from where typical glasses might.
Additionally, both style of optics typically involve thick beam splitters and mirrors sitting in front of your eyes, which means noticeable light loss not only from the device’s display, but also ambient light sources, making for dimmer pictures than you might expect and a dimmer physical environment overall. I really want to see Project Aura before judging, but I have my doubts it will make a great pair of all-day AR glasses simply based on that alone.
With Xreal very much the now of AR, it will be interesting to see how the company eventually makes the leap to the future of AR. The usual cadre of hardware competitors will eventually release their first salvos onto the market—rumored to kick off somewhere between next year and 2030—and you can bet they’ll be aiming for thin, stylish and packed with apps just itching to replace your smartphone.
