A Simple Question Sparked a $163M Bet
"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 question drove Matthew de Jonge to spend six years building Fortell, an AI hearing aid startup that recently raised $163 million from investors including 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 once, as most hearing aids do.
On this episode of TechCrunch's 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 rarely covers the cost, and innovation has been slow to arrive.
What You'll Hear
Listen to the full episode for more on:
- From mechanical engineering to medical devices: How de Jonge went from mechanical engineering and a hedge fund career to building handheld ultrasound machines at Butterfly Network — and why that experience gave him the confidence to take on hearing aids next.
- The AI architecture behind Fortell: A closer look at Fortell's approach, including a custom chip built by a former Google TPU designer.
- Why Big Hearing Aid has stalled: Why the five companies that dominate the hearing aid industry have been so slow to innovate, and how that shaped Fortell's pitch to investors.
- Apple AirPods as ally, not threat: De Jonge's take on Apple's AirPods as both a hearing aid alternative and an at-home hearing test — and why he sees them as complementary rather than competitive.
- Regulatory hurdles: The challenges around remote hearing aid fittings, and how state-level telemedicine laws are shaping Fortell's path to scale.
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