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OrCam Technologies

Assistive AI wearables / health techIsrael
New to Unitard
✂️ Markdown
Peak $1 BillionToday
~-85%
from peak
  1. 🦄
    Became a unicorn
    Feb 2018
  2. 📈
    Peak valuation
    $1 Billion ’18
  3. 💔
    Became a Unitard
    Mar 2025
  4. 💸
    Last valuation
    ~$150M
Current status
Private; halted low-vision product development in July 2024 to focus on its OrCam Hear hearing device; cut staff to fewer than 100 after repeated layoffs; founders and institutional investors in dispute over a SAFE conversion (reported March 2025)

The rise & fall

8 moments · 2010–2025

The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.

2010
Founded in Jerusalem by Mobileye's founders
Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram start OrCam to build camera-based wearables that read text and recognize faces for the visually impaired.
Times of Israel
Feb 20 ’18
The peak: $30.4M round at a $1B valuation$1B
Clal Insurance and Meitav Dash lead the round, which values OrCam at $1B before the investment. Globes later puts a 2021 peak near $1.5B without naming a round.
Times of Israel
Jun 3 ’24
Cuts 100 jobs, nearly half its staff
The second layoff in four months hits mainly marketing for its reading device; OrCam shifts to selling through distributors and to hearing products.
Calcalist
Jul 28 ’24
Halts development of its low-vision devices
OrCam says progress in AI language models makes further low-vision development redundant and focuses on OrCam Hear. It has raised $181M to date.
Globes
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2023–24
Glassdoor ratings slide from 4.0 in 2021 to about 3.1 in 2024. Reviewers fault unclear direction from management, below-market pay and the staff cuts, while most praise their colleagues and the products' mission.
Mar 12 ’25
Investors dispute a SAFE conversion at $30M–$40M$40M
The founders, who put about $9M into a SAFE, seek to convert at a $30M-$40M valuation; Clal, Harel, Leumi and Meitav object. Headcount is down to a few dozen from over 400.
Calcalist
Mar 13 ’25
Valued at about $150M, Globes estimates — joins the Unitard Club 💔$150M
Globes puts OrCam's value at about $150M, down more than 90% from its peak, with fewer than 100 staff and 2024 revenue of $16M.
Globes
Apr 2 ’25
Big Tech 50 values its $2M stake at $31,000
The TASE-listed fund's 2021 investment is valued about 98.5% lower at end-2024, in an independent valuation it says relied partly on media reports.
Globes

💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.

How it happened

OrCam, founded in Jerusalem in 2010 by Mobileye co-founders Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram, made AI wearables that read text aloud for blind and low-vision users. A $30.4M round led by Clal and Meitav Dash in February 2018 valued it at $1B before the new money; Globes later said the valuation peaked around $1.5B in 2021.

Globes reported that revenue fell from $45M–$50M in 2023 to about $16M in 2024. OrCam cut staff in several rounds and in July 2024 stopped developing its low-vision products, saying AI language models had made them redundant, to focus on hearing devices. In March 2025 Globes estimated the company's value at about $150M.

Calcalist reported institutional investors disputing a proposal to convert the founders' SAFE at a $30M to $40M valuation. Most still praised their colleagues and the products' value for blind and low-vision users.

Source: Times of Israel (Feb 20, 2018): $30.4M round led by Clal Insurance and Meitav Dash values OrCam at $1B pre-investment. Globes (Mar 13, 2025): valuation said to have peaked at about $1.5B in 2021 (no round named; the $1.0B 2018 figure is used as the peak); current value estimated at about $150M, down more than 90%; fewer than 100 employees; revenue $45M-$50M in 2023 and $16M in 2024; $12.5M founder-led round. The drop is keyed to the Globes estimate (single source, a journalistic estimate rather than a priced round). Calcalist (Mar 12, 2025): founders Shashua and Aviram, who put about $9M into a SAFE, sought conversion at a $30M-$40M valuation; Clal, Harel, Leumi and Meitav objected; earlier institutional rounds were at several hundred million dollars. Globes (Apr 2, 2025): Big Tech 50's $2M 2021 investment valued at $31,000 at end-2024 (about -98.5%), an independent valuation based partly on media reports. Globes (Jul 28, 2024): low-vision development halted; $181M raised to date. Calcalist (Jun 3, 2024): 100 layoffs, mostly marketing.

Founders

  • Ziv Aviram
    co-founder, president & CEO (led at peak)
    Still there — Co-Founder & Co-ChairmanLinkedIn ↗
  • Amnon Shashua
    co-founder & chairman
    Still there — Co-Founder & Co-ChairmanLinkedIn ↗

Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-10-22. See our methodology.

Disclosed investors (5)

Historical funding participation; lists may be incomplete and do not establish current ownership or investor losses.

* Lead in a funding round · Crunchbase ↗ · 2026-10-22 · Methodology · Leaderboard

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