Technology
XP Health raises $32M to provide employees with cheaper eye care
Antonio Moraes, the grandson of a late, distinguished Brazilian billionaire, was never fascinated about joining his family’s conglomerate of construction corporations and banks. Shortly after graduating from college, he founded certainly one of Brazil’s first impact funds, which invested primarily in corporations that made health care more accessible and reasonably priced.
But while attending Stanford University, where Moraes earned a master’s degree in business administration and health policy, he realized that as a substitute of investing in influential corporations, he wanted to start his own.
As a part of an entrepreneurship class, Moraes and his co-founder, engineering student James Wong, visited plenty of eyewear factories in China. They discovered that designer frames that cost up to $600 within the U.S. were only selling for about $10. “We thought there was something seriously wrong with those margins,” Moraes told TechCrunch.
Because vision care and glasses are expensive, many staff buy frames with vision insurance, but the advantages normally don’t cover all the prices, Moraes said. “With vision insurance, people expect to pay nothing, but then they walk out of the optometrist’s office with a $300 bill out of pocket.”
Moraes and Wong began XP Health in late 2018, but in the course of the pandemic, the corporate pivoted the startup’s operations to an AI-powered digital platform that provides employees eye exams and glasses advantages at a significantly lower cost than current vision insurance coverage.
On Thursday, XP Health announced a $33.2 million Series B led by QED Investors with participation from Canvas Ventures, American Family Ventures, HC9 Ventures, Valor Capital Group and Manchester Story. The round comes lower than two years after XP Health’s $17.1 million Series A.
XP Health members who buy glasses virtually can save up to 69% off retail, Moraes said. The company says it doesn’t mark up frames or lenses directly from factories in Asia. Instead, XP Health generates revenue through recurring membership fees.
“In many cases, our members pay $0 for a pair of high-quality designer frames with best-in-class lenses, as well as an eye exam,” Moraes said.
XP Health’s AI-powered platform uses facial recognition to recommend glasses that best suit the user’s style and face shape.
Members can even buy the glasses at brick-and-mortar eyewear stores at a reduced price, but Moraes emphasizes that an identical frame can cost two to thrice less if purchased on the corporate’s online platform.
In the past two years, the corporate has expanded its list of business clients from 30 to greater than 3,000, including Docusign, Navistar, Chegg and Sequoia Consulting, which supply XP Health as a profit to their employees. XP Health has also formed strategic partnerships with insurance providers, reminiscent of Guardian Life Insurance, which provides vision care advantages to small businesses.
Of course, XP Health isn’t the one company cutting out the middleman in eyewear. It’s already a crowded market. Warby Parker sells directly to consumers, as do Eyebuydirect, Firmoo, Pair Eyewear and Zenni, to name a number of other options. But Moraes says XP Health is the one startup taking up the incumbent vision insurance providers, in a market dominated by VSP and EyeMed Vision Care.
But XP Health doesn’t consider itself an insurance company. That’s because what these corporations offer isn’t insurance in the normal sense. “There’s no real risk,” Moraes said. “It’s a corporate benefit.”
Meta introduces teen accounts on Facebook and Messenger. A function that routinely saves young users for the impression of applications with built -in security, shall be available on these platforms within the USA, Great Britain, Australia and Canada, before it expands to additional regions in the long run.
Teen accounts first appeared on Instagram in September last yr after Instagram, and other popular social networks were grilled by American legislators for not doing enough to guard teenagers. As a part of Tuesday’s announcement, Meta said that he brings a brand new built -in account protection for teenagers on Instagram.
With the extension of Facebook and messengers, teenagers shall be routinely placed in an experience that goals to cut back inappropriate content and unwanted contact. Teens under 16 years of age need parents’ consent to vary any of the settings.
While Post on the META blog about launching doesn’t provide exact restrictions under which teenagers shall be placed, the corporate told TechCrunch We -Mail that teenagers will only receive messages from individuals who follow or had news earlier.
In addition, only teen friends can see and reply to their stories. Tags, references and comments will even be limited to people they follow or who’re their friends.
Teens will even receive reminders of leaving social networks after using them for an hour a day. In addition, they shall be enrolled within the “quiet mode” overnight.
As for brand spanking new instagram restrictions, teens under 16 years of age is not going to give you the chance to modify to the platform, unless their parents give them permission. In addition, teenagers under the age of 16 can have to get the parents’ consent to show off the applying function, which blur images containing suspicion of nudity in DMS.
The changes announced on Tuesday show the newest Meta step towards solving problems related to the mental health of teenagers related to social media. These fears were Raised by an American general surgeon and several states, a few of which have even began to limit teenagers from using social media Without the consent of the parent.
The Meta shared insight into how teen accounts on Instagram are doing, because the corporate claims that it has moved 54 million teenagers to teen accounts. The meta claims that there remains to be lots more, because this function remains to be developing all around the world. The company also shared that 97% of teenagers aged 13-15 maintain built-in protection, says finish.
The finish line also commissioned an IPSOS study, which showed that just about all surveyed parents (94%) claim that teen accounts are helpful for fogeys, and 85% consider that they make helping teenagers easier to have positive experiences on Instagram.
(Tagstranslate) Facebook
One of the new flagship AI Meta models released on Saturday, Maverick, Second rating at LM ArenaA test during which human rankings compare the outcomes of models and select which they like. But it appears that evidently the Maverick version, that the finish implemented on LM Arena differs from the version that’s widely available to programmers.
How several And researchers He pointed to X, Meta noticed within the announcement that Maverick on LM Arena is a “experimental version of the chat.” Chart on The official website of LlamaMeanwhile, it reveals that the testing of the LM META Arena was carried out using “Llama 4 Maverick optimized for conversation.”
As we wrote earlier, for various reasons LM Arena has never been essentially the most reliable measure of the performance of the AI model. But AI firms generally didn’t adapt or otherwise adapted their models to higher rating at LM Arena-Lub a minimum of didn’t admit it.
The problem related to adapting the model to the reference point, suspension of it, after which releasing the “vanilla” variant of the identical model, is that programmers are difficult to predict how good it can work in specific contexts. It can be misleading. It is best if the tests tests – miserably inadequate – provide a shutter of strong and weaknesses of 1 model in various tasks.
Indeed, scientists on X have Stark was observed Differences in behavior From publicly to download maverick in comparison with the hosted model on LM Arena. The LM Arena version seems to make use of many emoji and provides extremely long answers.
Okay, Lama 4 is Def and Littled cooked lol, what a yap city is that this city pic.twitter.com/y3gvhbvz65
– Nathan Lambert (@natolambert) April 6, 2025
For some reason, the Llam 4 model in the sector uses rather more emoji
together. Ai, it seems higher: pic.twitter.com/f74odx4zttt
– technological notes (@techdevnotes) April 6, 2025
We arrived at Meta and Chatbot Arena, a company that maintains LM Arena to comment.
(Tagstotransate) benchmark
Donald Trump has signed a brand new executive order “Save Tiktok”.
Tiktok will live to see the next day – at the least for now. On April 4, President Donald Trump signed a brand new executive order delaying the ban on a preferred social application by one other 75 days. The application was to darken in the USA on April 5.
The application, belonging to the Chinese company Bytedance, is now on the second extension in the first quarter of the 12 months. In 2024, President Biden signed bilateral laws of Ban Tiktok, citing fears about national security. Congress voted in a predominant means. Although Trump has signed the executive order to “save” the application, many questioned the legality of the movement. Like many president’s actions at the starting of his term, they complain that evidently he exceeds the authority of the executive office.
Trump announced his move to Stop the ban on social truthSaying that his administration remains to be working on the contract.
“My administration worked very hard on the Tiktok saving contract, and we have made great progress,” Trump wrote on April 4. “The contract requires more work to ensure the signing of all necessary approvals, which is why I sign an executive order to continue tiktok for an additional 75 days.”
Trump quoted his newly imposed tariffs to China as a key reason for detained negotiations for the buyer.
“We hope to continue working in good faith with China, which, as I understand, are not very satisfied with our mutual tariffs – necessary for honest and balanced trade between China and the USA,” wrote Trump. “It proves that tariffs are the most powerful economic tool and very important for our national security. We do not want Tiktok to go dark. We are looking forward to cooperation with Tiktok and China to complete the contract.”
This means a second time Trump entered to delay the ban. On January 2, just a couple of days after returning to the office, he signed the first extension to stop Tiktok, utilized by over 170 million Americans available to users.
The potential sales of Tiktok draws the major attention of the principal players in the business world. According to HillMany private equity firms, the Venture Capital groups and the best technological investors have introduced offers for a preferred application.
Among the firms, apparently in the mix are Blackstone, Oracle, Amazon – led by Jeff Bezos – and the founding father of Onlyfans Tim Stokely. Interest in purchasing Tiktok has increased, how uncertainty about its future in the US is always growing.
The application, utilized by 170 million Americans, is situated at the center of ongoing political and economic negotiations between the United States and China. Along with the upcoming pressure and deadlines, the possibility of selling opened the door to the largest technological and financial names.
The double class gives us controllers of companies on social media almost as many power as Byedance Tiktok
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