Even Realities, a Shenzhen smart-glasses maker, has reached a $1 billion valuation, and its chief executive says the city's manufacturing cluster is central to that milestone.
The company, founded in 2023, hit unicorn status after raising $150 million in a funding round led by the Chinese technology groups Meituan and Tencent.
Its founder and chief executive is Will Wang, a former Apple engineer who worked on the iPhone and Apple Watch.
Wang told CNBC that a consumer-electronics startup has a better chance of becoming the next Apple in Shenzhen than in Silicon Valley.
Why Shenzhen
Wang's argument rests on proximity.
He said about 90% of Even Realities' supply-chain partners sit within a 90-minute drive, a density he described as unmatched anywhere else.
Shenzhen is home to Chinese technology giants including Tencent, Huawei, the drone maker DJI and the electric-vehicle group BYD.
That concentration has produced a deep pool of mechanical, electrical and optical engineers, the specialists a hardware-first company needs to move quickly.
Wang said the cluster of suppliers, factories and component makers speeds up product iteration and lowers the friction of getting devices built and shipped.
A transpacific split
The pitch is not that Shenzhen wins outright, but that it complements American strengths.
Wang framed the United States as the leader in software and artificial intelligence, and Shenzhen as the centre of hardware.
The company's user base supports that division of labour.
More than half of Even Realities' customers are based in America, as are roughly 80% of its developers.
The result is a Chinese-manufactured product designed around a largely US audience.
A crowded, fast-growing market
The bet lands in a market expanding rapidly and dominated by a much larger rival.
Global smart-glasses shipments rose 167% year on year in the first quarter to 2.25 million units, according to the research firm IDC.
Meta leads with close to 70% of that market, well ahead of the field.
Even Realities takes a contrarian approach, selling display-only glasses with no camera, pitched on privacy to professional buyers at around $1,000 an order.
It also trails a domestic rival, Rokid, valued at $2.58 billion.
Whether Shenzhen's hardware edge can turn a niche into a challenge to Meta remains the open question behind Wang's wager.
