Tekcapital (TEK) , an intellectual property investment group, said its portfolio company Innovative Eyewear has released a major update to its Lucyd smart eyewear app. Innovative Eyewear is a developer of smart eyewear under the Lucyd, Nautica, Eddie Bauer and Reebok brands.
Back in April, Innovative Eyewear became the first smart eyewear company to enable ChatGPT integration via the Lucyd app. The launch of v2.0 delivers several new features and usability improvements to the app's iOS version, with the same planned for Android later in 2023.
Among the new features are an upgraded visual interface with smoother graphics and improved controls, and an improvement to the connection to ChatGPT, allowing long-form voice and text queries using the visual interface or Siri. Additionally, there have been improvements to the voice quality of the app's text-to-speech functionality, and users will now be able to export ChatGPT responses to email, SMS and social apps.
The new app bypasses the need for Siri Shortcuts for handsfree use, making the onboarding of new users simpler. The user can now simply activate Siri on their glasses and say "Lucyd" to access ChatGPT handsfree once the app is downloaded. A ChatGPT toolbox has also been added to the visual interface with the ability to generate a paragraph from a prompt, translate text into Spanish, synopsize long-form test, generate an email, among other advanced ChatGPT features.
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This is a significant update to the Lucyd app, streamlining ChatGPT integration, adding new features and functionality, and making it all easier to use with an improved voice and visual interface. Innovative Eyewear made headlines in April when it became the first smart eyewear company to integrate ChatGPT into its product. The initial response was positive, and much of the feedback has been incorporated into the new version. Investors welcomed the latest update, driving TEK shares 4.8% higher.
Innovative Eyewear also announced a shop and a pro version of the app that will be coming later in 2023, along with the Android version. This could potentially result in a new revenue stream from users of other hearable devices that want seamless voice access to ChatGPT.
Tekcapital's 67%-owned Innovative Eyewear has hit several major milestones since launching ChatGPT integration four months ago. The company partnered with Private Duty Free and licensed its tech to Reebok in June, then announced the launch of new light-blocking lens earlier this month.
Innovative Eyewear's success is underpinned by the growth of three markets that its smart product taps into. In 2023, the eyewear market in the US is expected to reach sales of US$33.83bn. In addition, the intelligent virtual assistant market is estimated to be worth US$58.2bn by 2030, while the US wearables market hit US$5.1bn in revenue in 2021.
The investment case for TEK's Innovative Eyewear is that eyewear will follow the same development path as smartphones and watches as it improves on its original form with smart, digital connectivity. Lucyd aims to be at the forefront of eyewear's smart transition, holding the standard in value, utility, and style.
TEK's other portfolio companies, MicroSalt and Guident, have also hit major milestones in 2023. MicroSalt partnered with a large US retailer to stock its products in 800 stores by Q4 2023. And Guident has been gaining further traction, recently scoring a new patent related to autonomous driving, and receiving a grant with Novelsat to develop satellite-based remote monitoring system for autonomous vehicles.
Currently, we see Tekcapital as undervalued, with NAV per share at US$0.38 (31p) at the end of FY22 and current share price at 10.75p. The overall trend for Tekcapital's portfolio is up, with steady increases in valuation each year since initial investment in 2018. From a technical standpoint, some consolidation was expected at this point, and the wide discount to NAV offers an attractive entry point.
Tekcapital historical net assets (US$m)
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