NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tuned, a digital hearing health company focused on providing hearing care for all, today announced that it raised $3.5 million in funding led by Distributed Ventures with participation from Idealab NY, and Elements Health Ventures. The funding will support Tuned’s mission to make comprehensive hearing care as affordable and accessible as possible while enabling the platform to be offered as a key employee benefit from 2023 onward.
“This funding represents a significant milestone for our platform as we continue to expand our team of audiologists and partner with employers to integrate hearing health into employee benefits packages,” said Danny Aronson, CEO and Co-founder of Tuned. “Having been impacted by hearing loss myself, I’ve experienced firsthand how expensive and ineffective this vertical of healthcare can be and the need for a telehealth platform that makes hearing care more attainable. Hearing care’s time has come; the technology is available, but what’s missing is an understanding and awareness that hearing is an important part of employees’ overall health and should be integrated into their coverage and healthcare offerings.”
Tuned is a new approach to hearing health, designed by leading audiologists and focused on rethinking how to deliver hearing care to more people, more easily. Tuned serves patients of all ages by connecting qualified and credentialed audiologists to patients via an easy-to-use clinically validated platform. Equipped with over 200 leading audiologists on its platform that is focused on providing holistic hearing care, Tuned is the largest audiology online platform in the U.S., and its virtual user experience increases access and convenience for health consumers. Tuned continues to rapidly evolve as it plans the launch of its pediatric service offerings in the third quarter.
Tuned is the first company to offer hearing care benefits that leverage a key macro policy development initiated by The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to establish a new regulatory category for over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids, which are 65% - 95% cheaper than traditional hearing aids. By utilizing OTC solutions, Tuned is able to offer comprehensive hearing care at a much lower rate than traditionally discounted hearing aid programs, reaching a much larger and unrepresented population.
“Distributed Ventures is proud to be a part of Tuned’s journey as the first benefit designed to bring hearing health to everyone and support the platform’s goal of making hearing care an integral part of employer-offered benefits,” said Shawn Ellis, Managing Partner at Distributed Ventures. “There is a huge misconception that hearing care is an elderly issue and that the only solution is hearing aids. Tuned’s technology provides affordable at-home access to screenings, audiologists, and treatment so that each individual gets the specific care they need.”
Central to its mission to create a change in how hearing care benefits impact organizations and employees, Tuned developed the hearing care impact calculator, a new tool that allows organizations to model the benefits of offering holistic hearing care to their employees. Tuned found that 25% of employees have some form of a hearing condition and separately discovered that 1.4M children are being misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or learning disabilities because no one has screened their hearing. The Tuned 360 Hearing Profile is the most advanced hearing screening available online, offering an affordable, convenient, and accessible solution on a global scale.
About Tuned
Tuned is a digital-first hearing care company. Available as an employer-sponsored benefit, Tuned offers lifelong preventative hearing care and hearing benefits to patients of all ages. The company supports care with comprehensive product options for hearing health, freeing employers from the need to evaluate thousands of headset and software combinations. Today, 1.4 million people can access Tuned through employer benefits and marketplaces. Tuned is a private company headquartered in New York City, with audiologists across the United States and worldwide. For more information visit: https://www.tunedcare.com
About Distributed Ventures
Distributed Ventures is a Seed to Series B focused fund that invests in entrepreneurs as they transform the future of risk across Fintech, Insurtech, and Digital Health and Benefits. As former founders, investors, and operators, the Distributed Ventures team provides deep subject matter and early-stage operational expertise to help companies find success from day one. Distributed Ventures was born out of NFP Ventures with the goal of helping entrepreneurs demonstrate product-market fit and accelerate commercial traction via diverse distribution channels. For more information, visit distributedvc.com
