BOULDER, Colo.—Treehouse Eyes, a startup focused on treating childhood myopia, has closed on a privately led Series Seed financing round. The company, based here, said it will use the funds to expand its geographic footprint in the U.S. and open more myopia treatment centers. Terms of the round were not disclosed. Launched in late 2016, Treehouse Eyes has dedicated myopia management centers in the metro D.C. market with hundreds of myopic children already in treatment.

Treehouse Eyes has refined the model for offering this service to address the growing myopia epidemic, with an estimated 13 million children in the U.S. already myopic.

“Myopia is now estimated to impact half the global population, or 4 billion people, by 2050. Simply correcting vision with conventional glasses or contact lenses and watching kids continually get worse every year is no longer the best option for myopic children. Treehouse Eyes is leading the way with a new retail health care concept focused on treating myopic children to slow down their myopic progression, reducing their risk of serious eye diseases associated with higher levels of myopia,” said Vance Thompson, MD and advisory board member.

“Our initial centers in metro-D.C. proved that this is a sustainable scalable business and one that parents’ value, similar to orthodontic braces for their child,” said Matt Oerding, CEO and co-founder of Treehouse Eyes. “With this new investment we will expand our model to partner with full scope eyecare practices to offer Treehouse Eyes myopia management services inside a full scope practice, enabling us to quickly address this growing issue.”

Co-founder of Treehouse Eyes, Gary Gerber, OD, said the company has been seeing “amazing” clinical results from the children who it has treated. “Demand for this partnership model has been significant and we are excited to partner with practices that share our clinical and customer service focus to enable us to treat even more myopic children,” said Dr. Gerber.