MIAMI—Lensbox, an eye-health technology company operating in the U.S. and Canada, is launching a “bricks-and-clicks technology” that is automated and ties in with what the company calls "a first-to-market patient experience center," or in-store kiosk display. The platform “seamlessly integrates with the Lensbox first-to-market app, tying in tele-optometry, e-commerce and point-of-sale technology for eyewear retail,” a recent announcement noted. The new app can be downloaded by ECPs from the Apple store or Google Play. The new technology, “Lensbox EyeDocs,” will digitalize the practice of eyecare beyond clinic walls, the company said.

The start-up tech company has investment to cover the placement of at least 480 of its new kiosks with independent eyecare professionals, co-founder and chief executive Sheila Sanaz Bissonnette told VMAIL. The kiosks are now operating in eight eyecare locations in Canada, Bissonnette said.
 
The Lensbox EyeDocs app, web-based platform and point-of-sale technology are all integrated with “a first-to-market, proprietary suite of products, designed, owned, and funded by independent doctors of optometry,” according to the announcement. Lensbox said it will take care of all the back end logistics, marketing, compliance, and operations, while offering remote tele-optometry and memorable patient experiences.
 
“EyeDocs is taking a traditional brick and mortar optometry practice and bringing it to the digital age, allowing ECPs to flourish and compete with the online world,” Sunil Parekh, OD, a Lensbox investor, said in the announcement. “The commodification of eyecare products, mass industry consolidations, and unregulated e-commerce players, has exacerbated the economic and societal cost of vision loss and made it difficult for ECPs to thrive, as independent practitioners and small business owners. ECPs can now be market leaders with this technology.”
 
Lensbox was launched in 2018 by Bissonnette, a former global M&A executive at EssilorLuxottica, and some ECPs, according to the announcement. Bissonnette noted that part of her mission is to enable ECPs to “own the most advanced virtual eyecare technology in the market, so that they can compete in an increasingly digitalized world.”
 
Bissonnette also told VMAIL that the Lensbox business model is built around establishing partnerships with doctors, some of whom have invested in the company, and that Lensbox is not a "predatory" model. It is open to every independent doctor of optometry.
 
Matt Michniewicz, OD, director of optometric partnerships at Lensbox, noted that the new Lensbox technology offers “the most accurate, in-app eyecare assessments in the world, without the use of rulers or credit cards (as is the current practice), as well as many other AI-powered diagnostics tools and high quality eyecare products.”