The eye exam as we know it today has hardly changed in over 100 years. Bulky equip­ment, ded­i­cated exam rooms, and time-con­sum­ing pro­ce­dures char­ac­ter­ize tra­di­tional eye diag­nos­tics. One per­son who knows these processes not only from the per­spec­tive of a founder but also from every­day expe­ri­ence is Dr. Markus Leicht. As an optometrist, he knows where the lim­i­ta­tions of the tra­di­tional eye exam lie. This is exactly where PERCEPTEC GmbH comes in: The Jena-based medtech startup aims to rethink the eye exam using mod­ern 3D dis­play tech­nol­ogy and an inno­v­a­tive test­ing con­cept. In this inter­view, Dr. Markus Leicht dis­cusses the idea behind PERCEPTEC, the devel­op­ment of the tech­nol­ogy, and the jour­ney from the ini­tial vision to a func­tional prototype. 

You are digitizing and automating eye diagnostics. What specific problem are you trying to solve with this? 

We are cur­rently devel­op­ing a vir­tual eye exam that can effi­ciently deter­mine refrac­tive errors. Such an eye exam is a key diag­nos­tic pro­ce­dure per­formed by an optometrist or oph­thal­mol­o­gist, the results of which lead to a pre­scrip­tion for glasses, con­tact lenses, or pos­si­bly even laser eye surgery. Tra­di­tional eye diag­nos­tics cur­rently fol­low a two-step process: First, ini­tial val­ues are auto­mat­i­cally deter­mined using a mea­sur­ing device. These val­ues then serve as the start­ing point for sub­jec­tive refrac­tion, dur­ing which a spe­cial­ist presents the patient with var­i­ous test lenses and asks them about their sub­jec­tive visual impression—that is, whether they see bet­ter or worse with a par­tic­u­lar lens. In this way, a struc­tured trial-and-error method is used to deter­mine the appro­pri­ate cor­rec­tion to com­pen­sate for the refrac­tive error. It is pre­cisely this com­pli­cated process that we aim to replace, so that eye diag­nos­tics can be per­formed more effi­ciently and quickly and offered in a sim­pler and more wide­spread manner. 

What is your solution?

Our solu­tion con­sists of two key com­po­nents: First, we use state-of-the-art 3D dis­play tech­nol­ogy to shift the eye exam from the real world to a vir­tual space. The device is about the size of a shoe­box; the user looks through two eye­pieces into the device and sees a vir­tual space that allows test objects to be dis­played real­is­ti­cally at both near and far dis­tances. Within this vir­tual space, we have devel­oped a test­ing pro­ce­dure that no longer exam­ines the eye and its refrac­tive error as a whole, but rather deter­mines the refrac­tive error step by step in dif­fer­ent sec­tions of the eye, like indi­vid­ual pieces of a puz­zle. The indi­vid­ual com­po­nents are then assem­bled using an algo­rithm to deter­mine the eye’s spe­cific refrac­tive error. This makes the test­ing pro­ce­dure very fast, sim­ple, and capa­ble of being per­formed inde­pen­dently by the per­son being examined. 

We are cur­rently work­ing on addi­tional fea­tures designed to improve the user expe­ri­ence of the vision test. Specif­i­cally: a hap­tic input device tai­lored to the test con­cept, as well as auto­mated, voice-con­trolled user inter­ac­tion. In the future, we plan to opti­mize our test algo­rithm using anonymized health data in com­pli­ance with legal require­ments, mak­ing the vision test even faster and more accu­rate. This is a very excit­ing time for us right now. 

Who benefits from this product?

First and fore­most, the end con­sumer should ben­e­fit from the prod­uct. That includes all peo­ple with vision impair­ments worldwide—a total of 2.2 bil­lion peo­ple. Of these, only 36% world­wide have access to appro­pri­ate diag­nos­tic ser­vices. Cer­tainly, the sup­ply sit­u­a­tion in Ger­many is more favor­able, yet even in Ger­many there are gaps in care, par­tic­u­larly in rural areas. 

To ensure that our vision test is acces­si­ble to peo­ple with vision prob­lems, we are tar­get­ing estab­lished providers in the first phase: opti­cians, oph­thal­mol­o­gists, and occu­pa­tional health physi­cians alike. Spe­cial­ists in par­tic­u­lar are cur­rently very busy, and patients some­times have to wait a long time for an appoint­ment. Our solu­tion offers the abil­ity to quickly and accu­rately diag­nose vision prob­lems. What pre­vi­ously took about 15 to 20 min­utes can now be com­pleted in a five-minute exam­i­na­tion using our tech­nol­ogy. Ini­tial val­i­da­tion shows that our vision test not only matches the cur­rent gold stan­dard for pre­ci­sion and reli­a­bil­ity but may even be supe­rior, even at this early pro­to­type stage. This is, of course, also of inter­est to opticians—especially large chain stores that want to stream­line their tightly sched­uled work­flows. But even smaller opti­cal shops can ben­e­fit, for exam­ple, by flex­i­bly address­ing staff short­ages or han­dling peak demand on week­ends. We also see great poten­tial for occu­pa­tional health physi­cians who must trans­port heavy and bulky equip­ment from one loca­tion to the next to per­form a wide range of tests. Thanks to its com­pact design, our sys­tem offers a whole new level of flex­i­bil­ity in use. Because it is auto­mated and can there­fore be used inde­pen­dently, the vision test can be con­ceived as a low-bar­rier, wide­spread ser­vice offered at a later stage to com­ple­ment exist­ing health­care services—for exam­ple, in drug­stores, phar­ma­cies, or sim­i­lar loca­tions in both urban and rural areas. 

Where did you turn first with your business idea?

The idea orig­i­nated as part of my doc­toral dis­ser­ta­tion, which was com­pleted through a col­lab­o­ra­tive Ph.D. pro­gram at TU Ilme­nau and EAH Jena in part­ner­ship with a com­pany work­ing on 3D dis­plays in the auto­mo­tive sec­tor. At that time, I had already con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­ity that this tech­nol­ogy could also be applied to diag­nos­tic appli­ca­tions. After com­plet­ing my doc­tor­ate, I sought out col­lab­o­ra­tors and con­tin­ued to develop the con­cept together with Dr. Ilka Urban and Nico Trinks. Ini­tially, we received sup­port from the “REAHLIZE” project at EAH Jena, which pro­vided us with both ini­tial fund­ing and access to space in the StartUpLab. 

How was the startup ecosystem in Thuringia able to help?

The Thuringian Startup Grant, which we received in 2023, was incred­i­bly impor­tant to us. Thanks to that sup­port, we were finan­cially secure for over a year and were able to focus entirely on our project. In May 2024, we founded our com­pany, PERCEPTEC GmbH. 

How did bm|t get involved? 

By pro­fes­sion­al­iz­ing the company’s struc­tures and processes, com­plet­ing fur­ther devel­op­ment steps toward a first func­tional pro­to­type, and refin­ing our busi­ness model, we were able to secure bm|t, Sparkasse Jena-Saale-Hol­z­land, and other busi­ness angels as investors in our com­pany. In this seed round, we not only received finan­cial sup­port but also gained valu­able tech­ni­cal exper­tise that has helped us make progress in var­i­ous areas. In addi­tion, a project pro­posal with a sig­nif­i­cant fund­ing amount was approved under the FTI Thürin­gen Tech­nolo­gie fund­ing pro­gram. These funds have enabled us to expand our team to six employ­ees and to fur­ther develop and val­i­date our inno­v­a­tive product. 

What is the current situation?

We cur­rently have a multi-award-win­ning, fully func­tional pro­to­type that is already deliv­er­ing very promis­ing results at this stage. A Ger­man patent appli­ca­tion was filed in 2025, and an inter­na­tional PCT appli­ca­tion has been pend­ing since 2026. Addi­tional patent appli­ca­tions are in the works. The team has devel­oped into a strong unit, and the com­pany is gen­er­at­ing its first sig­nif­i­cant rev­enue. Fur­ther­more, we are cur­rently in dis­cus­sions with strate­gic part­ners and are seek­ing addi­tional strong part­ners to pre­pare for mar­ket entry with a long-term perspective. 

We are cur­rently prepar­ing another round of fund­ing for 2027 to move from the pro­to­type to pre-pro­duc­tion and enter the mar­ket. If you are inter­ested in a more in-depth dis­cus­sion, please feel free to con­tact us. 

What is your vision for the future?

The pace at which new tech­nolo­gies are emerg­ing today is breath­tak­ing. We’d like to do our part. Cur­rently, our focus is on a test­ing method for the effi­cient detec­tion of vision impair­ments. At the same time, there are many other diag­nos­tic meth­ods in the fields of optom­e­try and oph­thal­mol­ogy that can be reimagined—always with the goal of mak­ing eye diag­nos­tics more effi­cient and more accessible. 

Thank you very much for the interview. 

[The inter­view with Markus Leicht was con­ducted by Tina Zim­mer­mann of the Thüringer Auf­baubank]