Elevear secures seed financing for market entry with audio technologies

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

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

The startup develops, integrates and licenses audio technologies for hearables. The company's goal is to improve wearing comfort and natural communication, thereby taking the hearing experience to a new level. Elevear's potential customers include 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 constantly growing, and manufacturers are looking for convincing unique selling points," says Dr. Ansgar Schleicher, Managing Director of TVF. "Elevear's technologies help manufacturers to quickly integrate innovative features into their products without having to invest in years of in-house development."

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 via a licensing model. This allows manufacturers to benefit from differentiating features with fast time-to-market and low internal development costs for new products.

The company is entering the hearables market, which was worth 35 billion US dollars in 2021 and recorded dynamic annual growth of 36 percent. The term "hearable" describes intelligent 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 initially be used in hearables and later in hearing aids. They are integrated as software directly onto the chips that are built into the headphones by the manufacturers.

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

Spin-off from RWTH Aachen University

Founded in 2021, the DeepTech spin-off from RWTH Aachen University is backed by a management team of experienced developers and industry experts. The founders are Dr.-Ing. Stefan Liebich, Johannes Fabry and Raphael Brandis, who have been working together for many years at the Institute of 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.