ASCEnt company spotlight: EyeCheck

Bringing their dream into sharper focus means that a Kitchener-based social venture will be offering its innovative eye examination device to local clinicians for testing this year.

And helping EyeCheck pivot from its initial plans for a two-tier approach to eye health to a more deployable product that could be helping the disadvantaged within a year’s time, is due in large part to its participation in ASCEnt, the Communitech program that helps social entrepreneurs build their business.

Primarily funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, and assisted by some private sector partners, ASCEnt (Accelerating Social Cause Entrepreneurs) has empowered 27 socially responsible ventures over the last three years.

EyeCheck, with offices in the Velocity Foundry, has had a Communitech connection since it was founded in 2014. The three co-founders — Ashutosh Syal and Daxal Desai, both University of Waterloo systems design engineering grads, and Rachel Friesen, a UW international development and business student — guide a team of a dozen full-time, part-time and volunteer staff.

EyeCheck’s goal is to deliver inexpensive eye care through a proprietary portable camera which can expedite basic eye exams in underserviced areas. “Social entrepreneurship for us is improving the ability of people on the margins to reach services that would fundamentally make their lives easier to live,” Syal said.

The original EyeCheck plan was a two-tier system of smartphone apps for eye health triage, with a proprietary portable camera doing the basic measurements that would lead to an eyeglasses prescription. The plan was to free eye specialists from routine examinations so they can focus on eye health issues.

With advice through the ASCEnt program, Syal and his team realized that too much of the team’s effort was spent developing the smartphone software, when the major barrier to global eye health — getting a glasses prescription — could be overcome by deploying the camera quickly. In addition, using the camera in North America — in remote areas or long-term care facilities — would create a revenue stream to support the project in less affluent areas.

EyeCheck made the pivot, focussed on the hardware, and, once some approvals have been received, the camera will be tested in selected Canadian eye clinics within months.

EyeCheck’s ASCEnt mentor, Amol Karnick, said the co-founders have the passion and energy to realize their goal, but the maturity to realize they needed to make the pivot. Karnick brings to his role as mentor decades of experience with medical imaging, and is now CEO of the tumour-detection startup Enhanced Medical.

“My initial meetings with these guys were all positive,” Karnick said. He said they had successfully raised enough money to begin the process, but realized they had to change direction to bring out a better product: “(EyeCheck) had the maturity to realize their software product wouldn’t cut it and moved in the right direction.”

Syal said that ASCEnt made EyeCheck a better company, thanks to the pivot and to its presence in the Waterloo Region tech ecosystem: “We were able to engage with the type of people who were interested in the type of vision we had.”

Syal says that social startups should not expect ASCEnt to do their work for them: “ASCEnt is not the kind of place where people work on your behalf. It is the kind of place that will foster the ability and skills of the founding team. It was a hallmark component that they helped us set milestones that we thought were achievable and they thought were aggressive enough.”

Syal says that as an ASCEnt cohort graduate, “I would like to be one of the people who supports this program in the future, paying it forward.”

And although EyeCheck’s term with the ASCEnt cohort has ended, Karnick plans to stay around. “They really need to raise some serious capital to push the company forward. I’m pushing them to get ready to pitch now.”

And, “I really like these guys, I will stay with them as long as they want me to. These guys are geared for success and I really want to see them succeed.”