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How Fortell is using AI (and $163M) to crack a hearing aid monopoly

2026-09-16 | original

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Why This Matters

Fortell's $163M raise signals major investor confidence in disrupting the hearing aid industry, which has long been dominated by five companies controlling 97% of the market with little innovation. By using AI to selectively amplify important sounds rather than blasting all noise equally, Fortell could redefine hearing aid technology and improve adoption rates among users who currently resist wearing them.

Key Takeaways

Fortell raised $163M from top investors like Founders Fund and Thrive Capital to build AI-powered hearing aids.
The hearing aid industry is highly concentrated, with five companies controlling 97% of the market and facing little innovation pressure.
Fortell's technology aims to intelligently filter and prioritize sounds in real time, addressing user frustration with traditional hearing aids that amplify everything indiscriminately.

Worth a Look

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“Why do I have to beg my grandparents to put on their hearing aids, but no one has ever needed to ask me to put on my glasses?”

That’s the question that drove Matthew de Jonge to spend six years building Fortell, an AI hearing aid startup that recently raised $163 million from the likes of Founders Fund, Thrive Capital, and Valor Equity Partners CEO Antonio Gracias. The buzzy startup aims to build hearing aids that understand the sounds around you in real time, figure out what’s important and turn down the rest — instead of turning everything up at the same time, as most hearing aids do.

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan is joined by de Jonge to break down what it takes to disrupt a decades-old industry where five companies make 97% of the products, insurance won’t cover the cost, and innovation has been slow to arrive.

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

Explore topics: fortell hearing aid matthew de jonge founders fund thrive capital