Aachen — Aachen-based deep tech startup Elevear secu­res a seed invest­ment from Tech­Vi­sion Fonds, a leading early-stage venture capi­tal inves­tor in the Rhine­land. With the fresh capi­tal, the team plans to bring its inno­va­tive and paten­ted audio tech­no­lo­gies to market and acce­le­rate the company’s growth.

Elevear deve­lops, inte­gra­tes and licen­ses audio tech­no­lo­gies for heara­bles, wire­less head­pho­nes with intel­li­gent addi­tio­nal func­tions — one of the largest growth markets curr­ently. The goal is to improve comfort and natu­ral commu­ni­ca­tion to take the listening expe­ri­ence to the next level. Custo­mers are manu­fac­tu­r­ers of head­pho­nes and hearing aids.

“The market for heara­bles is growing steadily, and manu­fac­tu­r­ers are looking for compel­ling unique selling points,” says Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher, mana­ging direc­tor 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 itself.”

Stefan Liebich, CEO of Elevear, under­lines the new colla­bo­ra­tion: “We are very plea­sed that TVF shares our vision for the tech­no­logy and its market poten­tial. We are now in an excel­lent posi­tion to support our ongo­ing custo­mer projects and their upco­ming product laun­ches, as well as expand our team and tech­no­logy portfolio.”

Inno­va­tion in a dyna­mic market environment
Elevear sells its tech­no­lo­gies and soft­ware algo­rithms to inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­r­ers of head­pho­nes and hearing aids through a licen­sing model. Manu­fac­tu­r­ers thus bene­fit from inno­va­tive diffe­ren­tia­tors with fast time to market and low inter­nal deve­lo­p­ment costs for new products.

The market entry is in the heara­bles segment, which shows dyna­mic growth of 36 percent p.a. with a market size of USD 35 billion in 2021. The term “heara­ble” descri­bes an intel­li­gent head­phone that combi­nes basic func­tions such as music play­back and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons with audio-based infor­ma­tion services and other inno­va­tive features.

In detail: Audio expe­ri­ence without distur­bing factors
Curr­ently, Elevear offers three products that can be used initi­ally in heara­bles and later in hearing aids. The products are inte­gra­ted as soft­ware directly onto the chips that manu­fac­tu­r­ers build into the headphones.

1. Occlear™ tech­no­logy compen­sa­tes for the so-called “occlu­sion effect”: this leads to a muffled percep­tion of one’s own voice and unplea­sant back­ground noise when wearing termi­na­ting head­pho­nes in or on the ears. Occlear™ solves this problem and increa­ses comfort and accep­tance when wearing hearables.
2. In quiet envi­ron­ments, there is often a stron­gly percep­ti­ble back­ground noise from the Heara­ble itself. Idle Noise Reduc­tion redu­ces the noise floor of minia­ture micro­pho­nes to the level of expen­sive studio micro­pho­nes, drama­ti­cally impro­ving audio quality while redu­cing hard­ware costs.
3. Steady­head tech­no­logy compen­sa­tes for head rota­tion for all audio regard­less of the audio source. This trans­forms the 3D audio expe­ri­ence in head­pho­nes and ensu­res that the user’s head move­ments are instantly compen­sa­ted for in the audio scene. The user has the feeling of immersion in the scene.

From rese­arch to product

Behind the DeepT­ech spin-off of RWTH Aachen Univer­sity, foun­ded in 2021, is a manage­ment team of expe­ri­en­ced deve­lo­pers and indus­try experts: foun­ders are Dr.-Ing. Stefan Liebich, Johan­nes Fabry and Raphael Bran­dis. They have 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. Toge­ther, the team has alre­ady won nume­rous awards.

About TVF
The Tech­Vi­sion Fund (TVF) is the leading early-stage VC fund in the Rhine­land. TVF is the third venture fund mana­ged by the S‑UBG Group team and invests regio­nally in tech­no­logy start­ups with a fund volume of €55 million. As one of the most expe­ri­en­ced inves­tors, TVF supports foun­ding teams with proxi­mity, network and exper­tise, paving the way for them to become the next inter­na­tio­nal indus­try leader. In addi­tion, TVF offers unique access to the “old economy” through the S‑UBG Group, provi­ding young start­ups with access to their first poten­tial custo­mers in the crucial early stages. The network includes over 150 successful port­fo­lio compa­nies from 30 years of invest­ment experience.
TVF — Brain | Cash | Proximity

About Elevear

Elevear is an Aachen-based startup that deve­lops inno­va­tive audio tech­no­lo­gies for heara­bles and sells them to manu­fac­tu­r­ers via a licen­sing model. Occlear™ compen­sa­tes for the occlu­sion effect that makes one’s voice sound muffled and boomy — a common problem with closed-back head­pho­nes and hearing aids. Combi­ned with Elevear’s Idle Noise Reduc­tion, which elimi­na­tes the annoy­ing inher­ent noise of heara­ble micro­pho­nes, Occlear™ ensu­res that users perceive their own voice and their surroun­dings natu­rally — just as if they were not wearing head­pho­nes. As soft­­ware-only solu­ti­ons, both tech­no­lo­gies are compa­ti­ble with common heara­bles and do not require specia­li­zed hard­ware. With Steady­head, Elevear has also been offe­ring a solu­tion for spatial audio with low-latency head track­ing since this year.
https://elevear-tech.com