10 2014
Fall 2014 Update
Dear DVS Stakeholders & Friends,
It's been busy in Atlanta! Here is an update of some recent events at DigitalVision Systems:
Vision Optimizer makes debut at Vision Expo West in Las Vegas. DigitalVision was one of eight companies invited to present our Vision Optimizer system at the Future in Focus innovation forum and our technology was voted "Most Poised for Success" by a sold-out audience. However, we had no time to celebrate or hit the casinos because Brian Hauser scheduled dawn-to-dusk meetings with industry executives who are interested in our Beta and Commercial Production Programs for 2015.
Senior industry executives visit DVS. In the last few months, senior executives from the four largest global optical lens manufacturers visited DVS to see our Alpha Prototype in operation and to discuss collaborating in the Vision Optimizer’s Beta and early commercialization programs. Lens manufacturers have provided DVS with financial and technical support and we are collaborating to ensure that their digitally-surfaced lenses can match the Vision Optimizer’s measurements that have twenty-five times the resolution of conventional phoropter-based prescriptions. During the summer, DVS also hosted senior teams from the two largest US optical retailers who are interested in participating in our Beta trials.
DVS in the News. Vision Monday is the most widely read industry newsletter and DVS' technology was featured in a Refraction Reboot article this summer by Andy Karp. VM is planning a follow-up story this fall on the Vision Optimizer’s progress toward market entry. In August, the GA Tech Board of Regents, GT President Bud Peterson and Steve Cross, VP Research, viewed our prototype in the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI) on Tech’s north campus. Our original research partners at the Electro-Optical System Lab created a case-study video recounting the DVS-GA Tech collaboration that led to the design of the new device. The Vision Optimizer was showcased at GCMI’s annual Open House hosted by Executive Director Tiffany Karp. Finally, Keith Thompson and LensCrafters Founder and DVS Board Member Dean Butler were recent guests on Gary Gerber’s PowerHour Podcast and Thompson appeared on Vision Care Inventing Podcast hosted by Dr. Richard Clompus.
The Vision Optimizer's Alpha Clinical Trials have accelerated during the past several weeks as Dave Roberts completed a careful calibration of the Alpha prototype between -5D and +5D range. The calibration routine he has devised will be used to automatically calibrate Beta and production units in the exam lane. To make corrective lenses for our clinical trial, Hoya has made their most advanced optical laboratory in Cleveland available to us, and their digitally surfaced lenses have very impressive optics. My new Hoya / DVO-prescription lenses were made to 0.01D resolution and they provide the best night vision I have experienced and a 1.5 line gain on the low-contrast acuity chart over my phoropter-based glasses. We expect to achieve similar results from the enrollees in our trial.
The Vision Optimizer is attracting collaborators for new applications. More than a phoropter-replacement, the Vision Optimizer is a platform technology offering new capabilities to improve outcomes in vision care and address unmet medical needs. We are in discussions with the leading contact lens manufacturer concerning the use of the DVO's virtual try on feature as an all-new way to fit multi-focal contact lenses in presbyopic patients. The UAB School of Optometry wants to pursue vision research projects with DVS such as developing screening routines for amblyopia (lazy eye) and other vision disorders in young children, which would have clearly benefitted our esteemed ‘one-eyed’ counsel, Oby, had the DVO been around in the 1950’s. Researchers from the Marcus Autism Center are developing a novel early detection test for Autism that could be used with the DVO's eye tracker and they are visiting GCMI in November to discuss collaboration.
Engineering for DVO Beta and Production Units. When they are not calibrating the Alpha unit or repairing damage wrought by clinicians, DVS's engineering team, led by DVS co-founder Jose Garcia, can be found innovating new ways to increase the capability and reduce the costs of Beta and Production units. Matthew Vickers and Richard Leboff have identified a new optical encoder that will squeeze out several-thousand dollars from the bill of materials and Andrew Sickafoose is designing a new gimbal for smoother tracking. The USPTO recently granted DVS two new patents, bringing the total to four issued and three pending patents to protect the company’s technology.
The new design for the Vision Optimizer effuses 21st Century technology. No one will confuse the DVO with grandpa's phoropter! For the Vision Expo event, Formhouse Creative, DVS's industrial designer, and Matthew Vickers completed the new designs for the ViewPort Mirror and Optical Tower. Vickers modeled the complex topologies in a CAD program then used GCM’s advanced 3D printer to create the modes scaled to the size of an exam room.
DVS forges partnerships to produce the Vision Optimizer. Plexus recently hosted a visit by DVS to their brand-new manufacturing facility in Neenah, WI, where we currently plan for the DVO to be built. As DVS’s engineering & manufacturing partner, Plexus has participated in calls with investors and strategic partners while their team readies to engineer the DVO for manufacturing. The first Beta units will be built in Atlanta and, assuming we reach ultimate agreement with Plexus, assembly will be transitioned to Plexus’s Neenah plant. DVS has engaged a leading optical manufacturer to design the DVO’s ViewPort mirror and we have partnered with a specialty optics manufacturer in the mid-west to develop the next-generation light engine that will power the Beta and production units and enable its virtual try-on features.
DVS's financing passed a major milestone! Blake Patton’s Tech Square fund and PayScape Founder and CEO Adam Bloomston, provided DVS with a $575K infusion of new capital in the last several months. After months of preparation and due diligence, Wunderlich Securities is now signed on as DVS’s investment banker and they are marketing to raise capital for our Series A investment to their investor network. Meanwhile, DVS is continuing its efforts to raise an additional $1.35M in $25K to $500K increments under the final portion of our Convertible Promissory Note Private Placement Memorandum (Interested investors: last chance to get $1 Warrants…call while the supply lasts!). These convertible promissory notes, and the convertible promissory notes of all existing investors, will convert into Preferred Stock on the same terms as the Series A investors at the time of a successful Series A closing. For all the work required to prepare our financial offering, DVS is particularly grateful for the help it received from Lang Lowrey and his Verta Group colleagues, June Joo, John Collings and Christine Montgomery and from DVS attorney (and investor) Oby Brewer.
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