Bendigo Tech Startup LensForge Raises $4.8M

LensForge, a Bendigo company that builds camera-free smart glasses for office tasks, closed a $4.8 million Series A round on 8 July 2026.

The round gives the company enough cash to move from 12 staff to 28 by December and to open a second assembly line. Investors see the same shift that prompted Realities and other makers to drop cameras entirely: workplaces want wearable help without recording colleagues or customers.

Why the money arrived now

Three local employers began pilot programs in March after the glasses passed a 40-hour battery test during normal desk shifts. Bendigo Health ran the devices on its administrative floor at the hospital campus on Lucan Street. The Bendigo Bank call centre on Williamson Street tracked a 17 percent drop in time spent switching between screens. Those results reached two Melbourne venture firms that had already visited the company’s workshop on Hargreaves Street. A Singapore fund joined after seeing the same data.

Bendigo’s tech scene has recorded 31 seed and Series A deals since January 2025, up from 19 the previous year, according to the Bendigo Innovation Network’s quarterly report released last month. Average cheque size rose to $3.1 million. LensForge’s round sits just above that mark and marks the first time a hardware wearable has cleared that threshold in the city.

Next steps for the company and the city

Production of the next 2,000 units begins at the View Street facility in September. The company will also run a six-week founder residency at the Bendigo Regional Institute of Technology on McCrae Street, open to any local team building productivity tools. City council staff have already booked two information sessions for small manufacturers that want to learn how LensForge cleared export compliance for the Singapore market.

Founders who want to follow the same path should register for the next intake at the Hargreaves Street co-working space before 1 August. The program supplies matched funding up to $150,000 for teams that secure at least one paying customer within 90 days of prototype delivery.