OculiRX · Centaris Health · seed pitch · 2026

Vision testing that extends
the practice — not around it.

OculiRX is a screening-grade, provider-reviewed visual-acuity test patients take at home — the retention layer that keeps independent eye-care practices connected to their patients between comprehensive exams. Class I, 510(k)-exempt SaMD, pre-launch, pre-revenue, platform shipped.

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The problem

Independent practices are losing the patient between exams — and the eyewear sale leaves with them.

The independent optometrist’s question: “I do the exam — then the glasses get bought online or at a big-box counter. How do I keep the patients I’ve earned?”

The dispensary is the business

Across ~22,900 independent US optometry practices (an ~$18B market), eyewear dispensing is 40%+ of practice revenue at 50–70% gross margin — and that margin is leaking to national online retailers and big-box chains.

The patient disappears between exams

Between comprehensive exams the practice has no touchpoint. When vision changes or glasses break, the patient starts wherever is fastest — which today is not their own doctor.

DTC alternatives cut the doctor out

Online vision tests built to bypass the practice draw organized optometry into opposition and give the independent OD nothing. Nobody is arming the incumbent.

The recapture thesis — that a between-exam screening touchpoint is net-new practice revenue recovering patients who were already leaving, never a substitute for the comprehensive exam — is exactly what the funded validation milestone is designed to prove.

Why now

The regulatory path is mapped. The provider-aligned lane is empty.

A precedented device type

OculiRX is a Class I, 510(k)-exempt SaMD (product code QTO, 21 CFR 886.1150) — the same device type as the FDA-cleared Visibly Digital Acuity Product (K220090).

source · FDA 21 CFR 886.1150 · K220090

DTC backlash opened the channel

Organized optometry has fought direct-to-consumer online vision testing for a decade. A provider-led model inverts the politics: the constituency that opposes DTC becomes the distribution channel.

source · AOA public positions

Remote eye care is still early

One in 10 US adults has used telemedicine for eye care. For 34 percent of US adults, the main reason they have not used it is that they had never heard of it. A supervised at-home touchpoint is still an open channel for the practice.

source · The Vision Council, Focused inSights Telehealth 2023 (Review of Optometric Business, 2023).

The DTC players keep building around the doctor. OculiRX exists to occupy the provider-aligned lane before anyone else takes channel alignment seriously.

Market

TAM · SAM · SOM. Order-of-magnitude. Honest.

TAM

$18B

~22,900 independent US optometry practices — the independent-practice market whose dispensing revenue is at stake.

Owner-supplied order of magnitude. No public source states this ~22,900 / ~$18B pair. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, QCEW, NAICS 621320, 2024: 21,438 private establishments. IBISWorld, Optometrists in the US, October 2026: $22.7bn.

SAM

$1.7B

Published US online eyeglasses and contact-lens sales — the online slice of dispensing revenue that leaves the practice. Not a bottom-up practice count, and big-box retail is outside this figure.

IBISWorld, Online Eyeglasses & Contact Lens Sales in the US, April 2026.

SOM (year 3)

set at launch

Practice-footprint × per-practice revenue. Commercial pricing is set at launch (publish-gated), so the year-3 dollar is not stated.

Set at launch. No product price is stated.

SAM is the published online eyewear channel, not a practice-footprint model. Year-3 SOM and ARR are set at launch. No product price is stated.

The product

A measured screening at home. A signed review in the practice.

At-home acuity exam

The patient surface

Calibrated in the browser — ISO ID-1 card screen calibration with a PPI cross-check, continuous camera-based distance monitoring, Sloan optotypes with letter-by-letter logMAR scoring, and a gated outcome state machine that never renders a clinical call.

Provider review portal

The clinical authority

A PHI-minimized review queue with the measured acuity, an exam-integrity report, and distance confidence — closed by a step-up TOTP e-signature. A licensed professional reviews and signs every result.

Practice platform

The tenant boundary

Practice-scoped multi-tenancy enforced at the query layer, an append-only SHA-256 audit chain, encrypted session video, and deterministic anti-cheat rules that flag — never auto-reject — for the provider.

The economics, honestly held

The patient pays an exam fee; the practice takes a share and keeps 100% of the eyewear margin the touchpoint protects; OculiRX keeps the remainder. Practices invite their own patients, so paid acquisition cost is near zero. Commercial pricing is set at launch — a publish-gate keeps every price off public surfaces until it is green, this deck included. A formal validation study is proposed; we publish no performance figures until the data supports them.

Why we win

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Competitive landscape

Alternatives, not competitors. April Dunford framing.

Category language by policy: the DTC digital-acuity vendors (including the maker of the predicate device) and the eyewear retailers all route around the independent OD; the in-office tele-optometry vendors serve the practice but stop at the practice’s front door. OculiRX is alone in the arms-the-OD, at-home, platform corner.

The ask · interactive

Move the slider. The deck moves with it.

Seed ask

$5.0MM

Target — the right ask

Validation study + FDA registration and listing + the first practice cohort, funded end-to-end.

$3MM

floor

$5MM

target

$15MM

cap

Team

Founders1
IC engineers2
Sales / marketing1
Ops1
Total headcount5

Speed

Validation study completemonth 6
FDA registration and device listingmonth 9
First paid practicesmonth 15
First buying-group pilotmonth 18
Runway46 months

Risk profile

De-riskedvalidation study + registration and listing funded end-to-end
Bet remainingpractice conversion after launch

Use of funds

Total · $5.0MM

Clinical & regulatory$1.4MM

Engineering$1.6MM

Go-to-market$1.1MM

Runway buffer$0.7MM

Contingency$0.3MM

Milestones · 12 / 24 months

M06Validation study complete
M09FDA registration and device listing
M15First paid practices live
M18First buying-group pilot
M24100-practice footprint

SWOT

Honest. Don’t sandbag. Don’t oversell.

Strengths

·Shipped SaMD-grade platform — exam engine, review portal, tenancy, audit chain
·Channel alignment no DTC player can copy without abandoning their model
·Regulatory-first honesty architecture, enforced in CI
·Class I, 510(k)-exempt device type (product code QTO)

Weaknesses

·Pre-launch and pre-revenue — the honest state
·Validation study proposed, not yet run
·Solo operating founder — bus-factor 1 until seed hires land
·No practice pilots signed yet; channel relationships are targets, not contracts

Opportunities

·Buying groups and alliances concentrate thousands of practices behind one deal
·Every DTC controversy strengthens the provider-aligned position
·The platform generalizes: the screening wedge can grow into the practice front door
·At-home care expectations keep rising

Threats

·Intended-use creep beyond screening would put the Class I exemption at risk
·The predicate vendor pivots hard into the provider channel
·Practice buying groups move slowly; channel deals can stall
·Validation results could force a narrower claim set

Founder

Solo founder, full-stack across the wedge. The seed buys the team.

Ryan Wentzel

Founder · CEO/President, Centaris Health

Engineering background. Ships the entire OculiRX stack — the browser acuity engine (calibration, distance monitoring, optotypes), the provider review portal, the tenancy and audit architecture — and owns the regulatory workstream. Operates a portfolio of shipped products under Wentzel Investments LLC, which is the ship-velocity evidence.

Founder-led today. Clinical/regulatory and go-to-market hires are the first seed-funded roles.

ryanwentzel.me ↗

Why this founder

The wedge is disciplined engineering inside a regulated boundary: a browser exam engine that measures honestly, a portal where a licensed professional holds the clinical authority, and copy gates that make overclaiming a build failure — all of it already shipped by one person. Advisor targets, in conversation: a practicing independent OD and a regulatory consultant. The credibility plan rests on shipped software and the Class I, 510(k)-exempt device type, not on logo walls.

The ask

$5MM seed.
Validation study complete by month 6. FDA registration and device listing by month 9. First paid practices live by month 15.
We can do it with $3MM (slower) or absorb $15MM (different motion entirely), but $5MM is what fits the wedge.

Let’s talk.

Investor introductions welcome. Fastest way to reach the founder is an email with one line about your fund focus and the call slot that works for you.

Email the founder

Vision testing that extendsthe practice — not around it.