Glassless named in the Top 100 of the Santander X UK Awards

One of the UK's major entrepreneurship competitions

Now in its 13th year, the Santander X UK Awards is one of the UK's major entrepreneurship competitions, supporting early-stage businesses through funding, business development and access to a wider international entrepreneurial network. The 2023 edition was divided into two categories — University and Startup — with 100 businesses selected to take part in a two-day business bootcamp before progressing to the pitching stage.

Glassless was selected in the Startup category, which was designed for growing UK businesses with disruptive and scalable solutions. The programme provided shortlisted companies with expert-led sessions, networking opportunities and pitch preparation before the next stage of the competition.

From the bootcamp to The Kia Oval

The Top 100 businesses were subsequently invited to pitch at The Kia Oval in London, where they competed for 12 places in the national final. The finalists would go on to pitch at Santander's new headquarters at Unity Place in Milton Keynes, with three winners selected in each category.

For Glassless, the recognition came at an early stage of the company's development, as the team was working to demonstrate that vision correction could move beyond traditional optical solutions and become part of the digital experience itself.

Vision correction as a software problem

Glassless is developing software that pre-compensates digital content for the effects of presbyopia. Instead of adding corrective optics between the user and the screen, the technology modifies the image displayed on the device so that it is adapted to the user's visual profile. The long-term objective is to enable people experiencing age-related near-vision loss to interact with smartphones, tablets and computers without relying on reading glasses.

The Santander X programme's focus on disruptive, scalable businesses provided Glassless with an opportunity to present its technology alongside other UK startups working on solutions across different sectors.

“Being selected for the Santander X UK Awards was an important milestone for us. Standing out among more than 1,600 entries gave us early validation that the problem we are trying to solve is both significant and immediately understandable. We are taking something that has traditionally required an external optical solution and exploring whether it can instead be addressed through software. Being able to present Glassless at The Oval and put that vision in front of the wider UK startup ecosystem was a fantastic opportunity for the team.”

A pathway to the global stage

The Santander X UK Awards also formed part of a wider international entrepreneurship programme. The six UK winners — three from each category — were due to receive equity-free funding and an automatic place in the Santander X Global Awards, providing an opportunity to compete alongside leading early-stage ventures from Europe and Latin America.

For Glassless, reaching the Top 100 marked another early recognition of the company's technology and its potential to address a widespread problem through a software-based approach to vision correction.

About the Santander X UK Awards

The Santander X UK Awards is an annual entrepreneurship competition supporting university businesses and early-stage startups in the UK. The 2023 programme selected 100 businesses for a two-day business bootcamp, followed by a pitching stage at The Kia Oval and a national final in Milton Keynes. Six winners received equity-free funding and places in the Santander X Global Awards.

About Glassless

Glassless is developing vision-correcting software designed to enable people with presbyopia to interact with digital devices without reading glasses. The technology pre-compensates digital content for the user's visual impairment, with the aim of integrating directly into smartphones, applications and other digital platforms.