Science & Technology

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

“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…

Published

3 days ago

September 16, 2026

CYBER TECH TV

“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.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

1:14 Why Matt built Fortell

5:16 The problem with hearing aids: everything’s just… loud

7:36 How Fortell’s AI separates important sound from noise

12:12 The funding pitch that won over Founders Fund and Thrive

16:31 Hearing aids vs. AI wearables (Meta, Apple, Legato)

20:34 Pricing, insurance, and the hearing aid “cartel”

23:25 Scaling up: new clinics and remote fitting

26:57 Outro

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1 Comment

@-DM

September 16, 2026 at 2:57 pm

They’re still prescription only, why can’t I just order some affordable hearing aids?

Reply

Science & Technology

This Startup Aims to Put Nuclear Reactors on Floating Barges

Just two months after it emerged from stealth, Bluecore Energy raised another $50M for its mission to put small nuclear reactors on floating barges. The company says the portable plants could deliver clean power to ports, data centers and communities, pending review by the NRC and Coast Guard.

Published

9 hours ago

September 18, 2026

CYBER TECH TV

Just two months after it emerged from stealth, Bluecore Energy raised another $50M for its mission to put small nuclear reactors on floating barges.

The company says the portable plants could deliver clean power to ports, data centers and communities, pending review by the NRC and Coast Guard.

Science & Technology

How will Anthropic’s CEO “pace the frontier” of AI? It’s still a mystery

AI leaders are suddenly talking about “pacing the frontier,” but the specifics are still pretty fuzzy. Equity breaks down why we’re skeptical that the AI industry is actually headed for a slowdown, even as leaders at Anthropic and OpenAI say they want to put the brakes on.

Published

9 hours ago

September 18, 2026

CYBER TECH TV

AI leaders are suddenly talking about “pacing the frontier,” but the specifics are still pretty fuzzy.

Equity breaks down why we’re skeptical that the AI industry is actually headed for a slowdown, even as leaders at Anthropic and OpenAI say they want to put the brakes on.

Science & Technology

Dario Amodei and other AI leaders want to ‘Pace the Frontier’ but…how? | Equity Podcast

A week after an Anthropic researcher’s doomsday warning rattled the AI world, the company’s CEO Dario Amodei has outlined his plan to “pace the frontier” of AI development. The proposal leans on independent safety evaluators and coordination between AI labs in democratic countries, and it’s already picked up some industry support, along with some pointed…

Published

14 hours ago

September 18, 2026

CYBER TECH TV

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane dig into whether companies can agree on what slowing down means and who gets to police it. Plus, WordPress parent Automattic’s boardroom coup, and a couple of the week’s biggest deals.

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

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

1:00 Dario Amodei’s plan to “pace the frontier”

5:03 Jensen Huang pushes back

9:08 Can market forces alone keep AI safe?

12:30 Third-party evaluators: how would they actually work?

15:27 Automattic’s board tries to oust Matt Mullenweg

19:31 Comparing it to OpenAI’s “the blip”

22:54 What’s at stake in who controls WordPress

24:04 May Mobility’s SPAC deal

28:42 Are SPACs back?