Cylite

Cylite, an Australian medical technology company, was established in 2013 by a team with deep expertise in photonics, optics, and software development, including brothers Dr. Steve Frisken and Grant Frisken, alongside Trevor Anderson and Dr. Simon Poole. Steve Frisken, a serial entrepreneur in optical communications and medical imaging, leveraged his background in interferometry and optical coherence tomography (OCT) to guide the company's direction. Grant Frisken's experience leading software development for a corneal topographer was pivotal in identifying the market need for an OCT device that could overcome eye movement challenges. The founding team's collective experience, much of it gained working together at previous ventures, created a strong foundation for developing a new class of diagnostic equipment.

The company operates in the ophthalmic diagnostics market, serving ophthalmologists and optometrists with its next-generation Hyperparallel OCT (HP-OCT) system. Cylite's business model centers on the design, in-house manufacturing, and sale of this high-tech medical hardware. Having secured over $25 million in private and government investment, including a Series B round from Main Sequence, the company successfully scaled its operations before being acquired by Alcon, a global leader in eye care, in January 2025.

Cylite's core product, the HP-OCT, addresses a fundamental limitation of traditional OCT systems: involuntary eye movement. Instead of a single scanning beam, the HP-OCT employs a grid of 1,008 parallel beamlets to capture a complete, motion artifact-free 3D volumetric image of the eye in a single snapshot. This enables scanning speeds of over 300,000 A-scans per second, consolidating the functions of multiple instruments—such as a topographer, biometer, and OCT—into one automated platform. The system provides micron-level accuracy for both anterior and posterior segments, delivering precise measurements of corneal topography, axial length, and other critical biometry parameters. This comprehensive data supports clinicians in diagnosing conditions like macular degeneration and glaucoma, as well as in planning for cataract surgery and fitting specialty contact lenses.

Keywords: ophthalmic diagnostics, optical coherence tomography, eye imaging, medical device, HP-OCT, corneal topography, biometry, ophthalmology, optometry, eye care technology, medtech, diagnostics, Alcon, Steve Frisken, whole eye diagnostics, anterior segment imaging, posterior segment imaging, refractive surgery planning, contact lens fitting, motion artifact free OCT