Elevear secures seed funding for market entry with audio technologies

Startup Elevear secures seed funding from TechVision Fonds, the early-stage venture capital investor in the Rhineland, for audio technologies in wireless headphones.

Aachen, Germany - Aachen-based deep tech startup Elevear has received a seed investment from TechVision Fonds, a leading early-stage venture capital investor in the Rhineland.

The startup develops, integrates and licenses audio technologies for hearables. The company's goal is to improve comfort and natural communication, taking the hearing experience to a new level. Elevear's potential customer base includes manufacturers of headphones and hearing aids.

With the fresh funding, the team plans to bring its patented audio technologies to market and accelerate the company's growth. "The market for hearables is growing steadily, and manufacturers are looking for compelling unique selling points," said Dr. Ansgar Schleicher, CEO of TVF. "Elevear's technologies help manufacturers rapidly integrate innovative features into their products without having to invest in years of development within the company themselves."

We are very pleased that TVF shares our vision for the technology and its market potential.

Stefan Liebich, CEO of Elevear

Elevear distributes its technologies and software algorithms to international manufacturers of headphones and hearing aids through a licensing model. This allows manufacturers to benefit from differentiators with rapid time to market and low internal development costs for new products.

The company is entering the hearables market, which had a size of $35 billion in 2021 and was experiencing dynamic annual growth of 36 percent. The term "hearable" describes smart headphones that combine basic functions such as music playback and telecommunications with audio-based information services and other innovative features. The products currently offered by Elevear can be used first in hearables and later in hearing aids. They will be integrated as software directly onto the chips that manufacturers build into the headphones.

The first product, OcclearTM technology, compensates for the so-called "occlusion effect" that leads to a muffled perception of one's own voice and unpleasant background noise when wearing headphones. Idle Noise Reduction reduces the background noise of miniature microphones, improving audio quality while reducing hardware costs. In addition, Steadyhead technology compensates for head rotation for all audio, regardless of the audio source, improving the 3D audio experience in headphones and providing more immersive scenery.

Spin-off from RWTH Aachen University

Behind the DeepTech spin-off of RWTH Aachen University, founded in 2021, is a management team of experienced developers and industry experts. The founders are Dr.-Ing. Stefan Liebich, Johannes Fabry and Raphael Brandis, who have already been working together for many years at the Institute for Communication Systems (IKS) at RWTH Aachen University and specialize in the field of audio signal processing. The founding team is complemented by industry expert Elfed Howells, who has more than 30 years of experience in the audio and consumer electronics industry.