World changing innovation begins with a robust story. Today, more than ever, story lines are critical for doing business. Having a clearly articulated mission and value proposition clarifies a strategic approach. Prominent venture capitalist, Ben Horowitz, perhaps said it best when he remarked that in the business world, “your story is your strategy.”
Lucyd’s story is one of the most unique. They are a Singaporean startup creating the new normal for augmented reality (AR) smartglasses using a decentralized ecosystem. This blockchain-infused project aims to develop an innovative portfolio of eyewear featuring advanced eye tracking, enhanced field of view, prescription lens compatibility, a low-profile form factor and a customizable control scheme. Ultimately, Lucyd wants to address what they view as missed opportunity in today’s nascent smartglasses market.
Lucyd pte ltd was founded by an intellectual property (IP) investment firm in the U.K. called Tekcapital. Tekcapital specializes in commercializing university technologies. It has built a robust network of thousands of research institutions around the world from which it sources new IP. The company typically discovers new IP using this network and has its science advisory board review the IP to assess the commercial potential. Next, if selected, they seek to create value by creating a portfolio company to improve the technology by building prototypes and conducting further testing of the IP. Once this is completed they seek to commercialize the technology with a strategic partner that’s established in the space.
Harrison Gross, cofounder of Lucyd explained, “Approximately 80 percent of university innovations don’t ever leave their institutions. Many great technologies are coming out of schools, but theses institutions need help to commercialize their technologies by building them into a demonstrable product.”
Lucyd is one of those projects. “We have a really strong team for a young company including experienced executive, optics, AR and blockchain experts. ”
Decentralized Eyewear
The blockchain is, itself, replete with compelling stories telling of a new technology with immense potential. For this reason, its reputation presents a key element in Lucyd’s advancement.
“Our introduction to the blockchain has been an interesting one. About six months ago, we were seeking different commercial partners for the AR technologies, talking to a number of companies in the consumer electronics space,” said Gross.
“These companies were wary of the smartglasses space because of the difficulties associated with productizing next-generation technology. They were really looking for a prototype that was ready to go. That’s when we decided to build the prototype ourselves.”
The more they considered using the blockchain and cryptocurrency utility tokens the more Gross’ team saw a more efficient way to create a content ecosystem for Lucyd’s hardware. “Blockchains can outsource everything to the community. It can democratize the creation, moderation and transaction of content. We believe it will help us build and manage our app store to scale.”
As the story goes, Lucyd is attempting to create a self-sufficient, community regulated and owned ecosystem. This type of ecosystem will make it far easier for other blockchain projects and app developers to use as a platform for creating their own storefronts and marketplaces.
According to Gross, the Lucyd team is primarily focused on creating the hardware glasses as the foundational component. Then they want to open the ecosystem up to anyone who is interested in developing the platform’s media in a streamlined way. Gross’ optimism for Lucyd’s potential future grows by the day.
“There are a lot of different uses we are foreseeing. We envision a day where these smartglasses will allow for peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers of digital tokens between smartglass users. It’s really exciting, every week a new utility for the token occurs to us.”
Gross also envisions an increased connectivity with other blockchain projects in the future whereby Lucyd’s AR platform would serve as the access hub. “Especially with other projects that run on the Ethereum token, since there is so much overlap in the protocols between our token and all the other ones.”
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Funding is of critical importance to any new project of Lucyd’s scope and magnitude. Lucyd’s proprietary LCD token was created for this very purpose — to crowdfund the prototype development of the Lucyd smartglasses and the creation of the Lucyd Lab blockchain. The LCD token will be used within the AR ecosystem to enable users to purchase smartglasses, apps and media within the Lucyd network.
“We are trying to do everything right, because of the importance of the project,” said Gross. “Recognizing the immense potential tied to the intersection between AR and the blockchain, we’re striving to make this a reality.”