Elio Labs, a company developing sensors designed for artificial intelligence systems rather than human vision, said it has raised $21 million in a funding round led by Innovation Endeavors and Xora.
The round also included participation from Kevin Weil and Scribble VC, as well as existing investors UpWest and Resolute Ventures, which led the company’s previous round.
Elio says its technology is intended to change the way sensors capture information. Instead of recording a fixed image or data point in advance, the company’s sensors allow AI systems to determine in real time what information should be captured, depending on the task.
According to the company, the system integrates computation into the optics themselves. Dynamic optical layers of micromirrors process light before it reaches the sensor, extracting signals that conventional lenses may flatten or lose. AI models then learn how the optics behave and correct them in real time, allowing the system to identify objects and materials by their physical signatures rather than only by pixels.
This approach allows a single module to perform functions that would otherwise require multiple sensors, while continuing to gain new capabilities after deployment. Elio describes this as making sensing behave more like software, with the same unit becoming more capable over time instead of becoming outdated.
The company said its technology could be used in fields including microscopy, semiconductors, robotics and defense. In microscopy, the sensors could allow researchers to observe living cells responding to drugs over time without staining or destroying the sample. In semiconductor manufacturing, the technology could help engineers identify defects buried inside stacked chip layers without cutting wafers apart.
Nitay Romano, Elio founder and CTO
(Photo: Elio)
In robotics, Elio says its sensors could give machines multiple sensing capabilities in one self-calibrating module. In defense, the technology could help detect small, fast-moving threats such as drones at long range, including in darkness, haze or other conditions that challenge conventional sensors.
Elio is led by founder and CEO Nadav Grossinger and Chief Technology Officer Nitay Romano, who have worked in optics and AI for more than two decades. The two previously helped build Pebbles Interfaces, which was acquired by Meta, and later spent seven years working on the physical sensing systems behind Meta’s augmented and virtual reality headsets.
Grossinger’s previous ventures include ColoRight, which was acquired by L’Oréal. Romano, who specializes in diffractive optics, previously served as chief optical scientist at Holo/Or.
The company said it plans to use the new funding to continue developing sensors for AI systems across a range of industrial, scientific and defense applications.