Consumer / Employer

Yes Hearing Secures $10M To Expand In-home Hearing Care

The funding round was led by Blue Heron Capital and included participation from Primetime Partners, Ensemble Innovation Ventures, Maccabee Ventures and Gaingels. In total, the company has raised $13.5 million.

When Yes Hearing CEO Sam Shear’s grandparents began to experience major hearing loss in 2018, it left him with a few realizations. First, he discovered hearing loss is extremely isolating. Second, it leads to declining health in other areas, like dementia and depression. Lastly, accessing hearing care is immensely confusing and difficult.

This ultimately led him to starting New York-based Yes Hearing in 2019. The startup sells prescription hearing aids and provides in-home and telehealth audiology services across all 50 states. 

Hearing aids are really only half of the battle — hearing care is so much more than that. Yes Hearing offers an in-home service that provides the knowledge and counseling required to increase the actual usage of hearing aids. This leads to long-term health benefits beyond just hearing, including communication, mobility, dementia prevention and more,” Shear wrote in an email.

After securing $10 million in Series A funding, Yes Hearing will work to grow its services, it announced last week. The funding round was led by Blue Heron Capital and included participation from Primetime Partners, Ensemble Innovation Ventures, Maccabee Ventures and Gaingels. In total, the company has raised $13.5 million.

Blue Heron Capital chose to invest in Yes Hearing because of its work in bringing hearing care to the home, said Tom Bendetti, managing partner of the firm.

“The team has created a better delivery model that bridges the gap between the need for care and access to better in-home healthcare,” Bendetti said in a news release. “The benefits of moving professional healthcare services into the home setting are vast, from delivering higher-quality, personalized, and professional care to providing patients with an increased feeling of independence, safety, comfort, and convenience, greater levels of satisfaction, and ultimately better outcomes.”

Yes Hearing will use the funds to grow its direct-to-consumer offerings, as well as improve education on hearing loss, Shear said.

“Our plans include the development of technology like a telehealth portal for patients, a portal for our care providers, and patient-provider matching initiatives,” Shear stated. “We’ll also be driving brand expansion, focusing on improving education and awareness of hearing loss and hearing care accessibility options.”

The hearing care startup sells directly to consumers. Those who are seeking its services can start with a free phone consultation, where they’ll receive recommendations based on their needs. They can also browse Yes Hearing’s website for its hearing products. Once they decide on a hearing aid, a specialist from the company will hand deliver the product. The hearing aid purchase includes an in-home hearing aid test and 60 days of follow-up care. After those 60 days, patients can subscribe to ongoing care, which can cost between $299 to $659 a year.

Yes Hearing currently only sells prescription hearing aids, but in the future may sell over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids, which just became available October 17.

“We’re currently working solely with prescription devices — but we will be continually assessing the OTC product range as more data becomes available,” Shear said. “As the OTC devices and technology becomes more widely tested, reviewed, and used by consumers, if there is a product that we believe can add benefit to our patients, we will absolutely move to make them a part of our overarching offering.”

Other hearing care and hearing aid companies include Tuned, Soundly and Eargo.

Photo: PIKSEL, Getty Images

Shares0
Shares0