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

1 month ago

September 16, 2026

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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.

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

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