In this notoriously challenging financing environment, companies often need the trifecta of validated technology, an experienced management team and early-stage financing in order to make the leap to a large-scale venture raise.

And it helps if the technology makes a real impact.

MaRS client eSight Corp is one company with the whole package. Before recently receiving $950,000 in funding from FedDev Ontario’s Investing in Business Innovation (IBI), eSight was able to attract up to $3.4 million in angel investment from members of Boston Harbor Angels, Capital Angel Network, Golden Triangle Angelnet, Angel One Investor Network and the Investment Accelerator Fund (IAF). eSight is in a good position to continue honing its prototype in preparation for launch.

If you know someone with low vision, this is a company you’ll want to learn more about. eSight’s technology maximizes the wearers’ remaining eyesight, enabling individuals challenged by degenerative eye diseases to see their family members and fully participate in activities that they love.

The validated technology

eSight Eyewear, the company’s flagship product, is a new class of wearable, electronic assistive technology for people with low vision. Through developing and commercializing this technology, eSight aims to help people with low vision participate more fully in all aspects of life and restore their independence. eSight Eyewear uses high-resolution video components and sophisticated processing to enhance images—these are really the most technologically advanced glasses you’ll ever try on!

The management team

Led by experienced entrepreneurs Conrad Lewis, founder, and Kevin Rankin, president and CEO, eSight Corp is leveraging established networks and expertise from across its investors and the Ontario Network of Excellence to fuel growth internationally.

The early support

Before closing their latest venture raise, eSight had secured support from BAP and angel investors.

Working with MaRS and Invest Ottawa since 2011, eSight has presented at a MaRS Angel Event and worked closely with the advisory team. MaRS practice lead Sonia Sanhueza advised eSight on business development strategy, helping the company to obtain BAP funding, which supported the hiring of a business development expert.

“eSight has developed rapidly and has a visionary executive team that is taking the venture to a new level, enabling access to this great technology for those with low vision,” says Sonia.

The MaRS life sciences and healthcare practice connects entrepreneurs to appropriate resources that will accelerate company growth, typically within three critical areas: propelling a greater number of companies to achieve strength in the quality of their technology, management and early-stage support will lead to greater success for the ecosystem overall.

eSight is not the only one…

MaRS clients have been hitting home runs across the board this quarter.

• Antibe Therapeutics has gone public, filing a preliminary initial public offering for $3 million on the TSX Venture Exchange. Big news!
• Self Care Catalysts, a MaRS incubator tenant and advisory services client, has been named one of the Top 50 Innovators by youngStartup Ventures. On March 20, 2013, Self Care Catalysts presented its innovative new product, Patient Storyline, at the 2013 Life Sciences & Healthcare Venture Summit. Self Care Catalysts develops health research and strategy to inform decision making for better health outcomes for individuals.

Ottawa, Ontario—The Honourable Gordon O’Connor, Member of Parliament for Carleton – Mississippi Mills, on behalf of the Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), today announced Government of Canada investments of up to $3.67 million to support six start-up technology development companies in the Ottawa area.

“Our government continues to support the drivers of growth and job creation – innovation, investment, education, skills and communities,” said Minister O’Connor. “Investments like the ones announced today will help start-up businesses increase their international market share and create jobs in the Ottawa area.”

Through FedDev Ontario’s Investing in Business Innovation initiative, the contributions will support the following six innovative companies:

• Up to $984,667 for BLiNQ Wireless Inc., developer of hardware for the enhancement of wireless networks;
• Up to $950,000 for eSight Corp., developer of assistive technology for people with low vision;
• Up to $500,000 for Impakt Protective Inc., developer of helmet sensory technology to measure the risk of concussion;
• Up to $500,000 for Magor Communications Corp. and
• Up to $450,000 for Fusebill Inc., developers of business application software platforms;
• Up to $287,500 for ThinkRF Corporation, developer of hardware for wireless radio frequency analysis.

FedDev Ontario funding for these projects will leverage up to $9.8 million in angel investment and venture capital financing.

The companies expect to create up to 123 high-value, full-time jobs in the Ottawa area during the course of these projects, with an additional 202 jobs by 2017.

For more information on this project and the Investing in Business Innovation initiative, please refer to the backgrounder.

Investing in Business Innovation is designed to boost private sector investment in start-up businesses to accelerate the development of new products, processes and practices and help bring them to market. The Government of Canada is focusing on a portfolio of early-stage businesses that are recognized by the investor community as having the potential for high-growth and a net long-term economic benefit for southern Ontario. The investor community includes accredited angel investors from recognized angel investor networks in southern Ontario registered with the Network of Angel Organizations – Ontario and venture capital providers who are member of Canada’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association.

Created in 2009, FedDev Ontario supports the southern Ontario economy by building on the region’s strengths and creating opportunities for jobs and economic growth. The Agency has launched a number of initiatives to create a Southern Ontario Advantage and place the region in a strong position to compete in the global economy. These initiatives are designed to encourage partnerships and support projects that help the region’s businesses and communities become more competitive, innovative and diversified.

As outlined by the Prime Minister, the Government of Canada remains focused on what Canadians care most about: their families, the safety of our streets and communities, their pride in being a citizen of this country, and their personal financial security.

To learn more, please visit www.FedDevOntario.gc.ca or call 1-866-593-5505.

Can advanced technology improve the sight of the visually impaired? An Ottawa-based company believes so.

Founded in 2006 by telecom entrepreneur Conrad Lewis – whose two sisters suffer from Stargardt’s disease – eSight Corp. develops intelligent video eyewear for people challenged by macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and other low-vision conditions.

The company’s signature product, eSight eyewear, resembles fit-over sunglasses. Equipped with a high-resolution HD video camera and two micro video screens, the futuristic glasses capture live video and process the images in a controller featuring zoom in/zoom out, contrast, colour optimization and brightness functions. As a result, the visually impaired often see facial expressions and colours more clearly and more vibrantly.

Conrad Lewis,
eSight’s founder and
former telecom
entrepreneur.

In a Hamilton Spectator article published last year, Yvonne Felix, a 31-year-old, legally blind mother of two recounts how an eSight prototype helped her briefly regain her sight. Diagnosed with Stargardt’s at age seven, resulting in a large blind spot impeding her vision, Mrs. Felix describes the experience of having her vision enhanced for the first time as an adult.

“I was in a state of shock for the whole time,” she said. “My blind spot had essentially disappeared. I looked at my husband and I could see his face very clearly and I could see (her two-month-old-son) Thomas’s face clearly and I looked over and I could see (six-year-old) Noah’s face.”

For eSight President and CEO Kevin Rankin, helping improve the sight of those with severe visual impairment is its own reward.

In an interview posted on his company’s website, Mr. Rankin commented, “Some of our clients have told us that for the first time in decades, with the help of eSight eyewear, they’re able to read at a normal distance, see the faces of loves ones, and feel more engaged in their surroundings.” He added, “Our product’s portability also allows the user to work away from their desks to better see presentations and live events, while engaging fellow students, colleagues, and other participants.”

While not the only company working in the burgeoning visual aid field, eSight is ahead of the curve.

Unlike competing products, eSight eyewear is mobile, hands free, and suitable for near, far, and mid-range tasks. Equally important, the glasses are custom built for comfort and incorporate the user’s prescription lenses. By programming a single mathematical algorithm, the product caters to the user’s specific eye condition and preferred daily activities.

The glasses also run on rechargeable batteries lasting up to four hours. And like a smart phone, they can be charged overnight.

Cost-wise, eSight units sell for $9,750 each and can be purchased with financing at about $10 a day. And like any next-generation product in development, each successful prototype launch further reduces the sticker price.

eSight eyewear is presently marketed through eye doctors at eSight-certified vision clinics located in Toronto, Halifax, and Ottawa. Through its website, eSight also organizes events whereby potential customers can test the product for themselves.

Building partnerships is a big part of the company’s success. The CNIB, Canada’s Foundation for Fighting Blindness, and the University of Ottawa’s Eye Institute all played a role in eSight eyewear’s development.

eSight is part of Ottawa’s world-renowned life sciences sector. A hub for medical device, health IT and bio-pharmaceutical research, Ottawa is home to nearly 100 life science companies and more than 8,500 highly skilled, highly educated workers. In 2011, urban guru Richard Florida rated Ottawa the “best overall” in Canada on his Creative Class index.

eSight believes it has the potential to become one of Ottawa’s biggest life sciences players. In a Financial Post interview published last year, Mr. Rankin was quoted as saying, “We’re at the forefront of what we believe will be a multi-billion dollar visual-aid market.”

eSight’s future is bright. When it comes to advances in today’s visual aid market, seeing really is believing.

The only obvious differences between Emma-Rose Gibson and most other eight-year-olds are her talent and maturity.

It’s only when she goes to read the song she penned herself on her way home from school or reads out homework questions that her struggle becomes clearer.

Sitting at her kitchen table with mom Jennifer-Anne, the little girl reads her schoolwork with her nose pressed to the paper.

It’s the only way she can see clearly, the result of an eye condition that doctors initially believed left her completely blind.

“So my eye condition is called optic nerve hypoplasia,” the precocious third grader says happily, more intent on showing off her latest painting.

Diagnosed at two months old, Emma-Rose beat the odds when, at two, she was able to see shadows and track objects with her eyes.

“We had to argue with doctors (to convince them) she had sight,” said Jennifer-Anne.

Since then, the Gibsons; Jennifer-Anne and her husband Justin Gibson have helped Emma-Rose adjust to life with 20/400 eyesight.

But the disability — if you can call it that — has hardly slowed the kid down.

“I learned to get used to it,” she said.

But if all goes according to plan at a fundraising bowl-a-thon on March 24, Emma-Rose may be able to start seeing more than anyone thought possible, thanks to a high-tech pair of glasses made by a local company.

After hearing about the new technology on the radio, Jennifer-Anne put a call into eSight Corp and Emma-Rose tried the glasses in January.

The results couldn’t have been better as the glasses recorded Emma-Rose’s eyesight improving to 20/30 while wearing the special specs.

“It really helped me see,” Emma-Rose said. “I could see McDonalds, and it was driving distance (away).

“I was like, is this really happening?”

The feeling of seeing her daughter’s reaction to being able to see clearly was hard to explain.

“She giggled,” said Jennifer-Anne. “She saw our faces and zoomed right in. It was pretty amazing.”

As with most ground-breaking technology, the cost of the goggles is steep and the $10,000 price tag is more than the family can afford on their own.

So they’re counting on the support of friends and family at the fundraiser, which starts at 4 p.m. at the Merivale Bowling Centre.

“It’s amazing just thinking of all the things that will change for her,” said Jennifer-Anne.

For more information, check out the eSightforEmma Facebook page.

chris.hofley@sunmedia.ca

A pair of electronic glasses designed and built by local firm eSight to boost the vision of people with eye damage is set come to market this summer thanks, in no small part, to a band of Ottawa-based angel investors.

“Having the local guys is key,” said eSight CEO, Kevin Rankin of early funding his company received from the Capital Angel Network that will bear fruit with his firm’s product launch in the second quarter of 2013.

“The presence of a local angel investor network helped validate a number aspects of the company,” Rankin said of trips south of the border to approach investors in the medical capital of the world – Boston. “We had a working prototype that had been proven through client and professional evaluation. But the partnership allowed for local validation of the people and the company.”

Rankin said his product targets a growing market of 8 million to 109 million people who have suffered eye damage from macular degeneration or diseases such as type 2 diabetes. “What’s breakthrough is to enhance the contrast of an image in realtime,” he said of the device, adding that it’s not tethered to a desk like other models. “We basically get the visiual communication system working better by sending an optimized signal to the eye which responds by sending a signal to the brain.”

When Rankin approached the Capital Angel Network for funding last year, they knew they had a winner, said Parm Gill, the group’s executive director. “To be able to provide sight to people who can’t see clearly or at all, that’s tremendous,” he said. “Global activity in Ottawa today is phenomenal. I wish I had this network when I stared back in the 90s. It’s encouraging for entrepreneurs.”

In 2012, Gill said his group of 100 local investors funded some 12 to 14 Ottawa companies after seeing pitches from approximately 24 throughout the year. Now the group is working to grow, focussing on gaining expertise in up and coming industries.

“We’re shifting from telecom to mobile gaming,” Gill said of the city’s tech scene. “As angel groups we need to get up to speed on those technologies and bring in people who have those skills. We can’t just invest in our comfort area.”

Sight, sound, taste and touch are the senses that engage us with the physical world and the loss of any one of them can seriously compromise our work, our pleasures, our safety, our security and our connectedness with others.

Technology has recently contributed much towards compensating for sensory loss and especially now for those for whom vision is severely impaired.

In 2006, Conrad Lewis, a well-known Ottawa technology veteran founded eSight Corp. The eSight technology is an amalgam of those that Lewis acquired from his Mitel and Newbridge experiences and applied now in a manner that can benefit people with impaired vision.

Lewis is personally acquainted with vision problems – although certainly not in the business sense. His wife is severely nearsighted and he has two sisters who have Stargardt’s disease, a disease that causes people to be especially sensitive to glare and the disease for which eSight developed its original prototype.

The symptoms of Stargardt’s disease usually appear before the age of 20 and can include wavy vision, blind spots, blurriness, impaired color vision, and difficulty adapting to dim lighting. Vision is most noticeably impaired when the macula (the centre of retina and focus of vision) is damaged, leaving only the peripheral vision intact. Lewis himself is blind in one eye as the result of an accident that damaged his optic nerve.

The eSight device consists of a headset, a frame that includes personalized prescription lenses, and a controller that holds a 4-hour battery. Each unit can be calibrated to suit its user’s medical condition and the lenses can zoom to text and allow a book to be read at a normal distance rather than holding it against the face.

The eyewear is a new class of wearable, electronic assistive technology designed specifically for people with low vision. It incorporates a high-resolution video camera and a bright, high–contrast, “virtual” display for each eye. The eyewear is personalized and algorithms are programmed according to the user’s eye condition and preferred activities and, in addition, prescription lenses can be built directly into the Eyewear.

No other electronic low vision aid is mobile, hands free, and suitable for near, far, and mid-range tasks.

The potential market for eSight is huge. There are about eight million people in North America suffering from low vision or near blindness that eSight can help, and every year, another 500,000 are diagnosed with severe vision impairment. The conditions that eSight targets to ease include macular degeneration, Stargardt’s disease, ocular albinism, diabetic retinopathy, Leber’s disease, forms of retinitis pigmentosa, glaucoma, cone-rod dystrophy and other low vision conditions.

eSight is most suited to people with visual acuity between 20:60 and 20:400, and for people under 75 years old. It is not suitable for those with severe tunnel vision.

eSight Corp. has already partnered with several vision advocacy groups, including CNIB Canada (formerly Canadian National Institute for the Blind) and the Foundation for Fighting Blindness, to promote the product and help find potential users. It’s also working with vision experts to sell the devices in Canada and the U.S. Product pricing is anticipated to be in line with high quality hearing aid equipment.

But eSight’s greatest gift by far is the freedom for its users to integrate fully into a world of people and things that would be otherwise barely visible.

eSight Eyewear featured on AMI’s Accessibility in Action.