NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Lively has announced the official launch of its online audiology platform, which it says provides hearing tests, hearing aid sales, and ongoing support for its hearing aid clients. Additionally, the company announced the close of its $16 million Series A fundraise.
The Series A fundraising was led by Declaration Capital, the family office of David M. Rubenstein, which focuses on venture, growth and family-owned investments. Rubenstein is the co-founder and co-executive chairman of The Carlyle Group. Tiger Management also participated in the round.
Hearing Aids and Services, Offered Direct to Consumers
Lively offers “modern hearing aids, designed and manufactured by one of the world’s leading hearing aid manufacturers, combined with audiologist care for a fraction of the price of traditional brick-and-mortar offices”.
Users can take Lively’s online hearing assessment, meet with an audiologist face-to-face via video conference, and receive a premium hearing aid – all without visiting an office. The company says that it backs up purchases with a 100-day money-back guarantee and 2 years of unlimited support from Lively doctors for fine-tuning and hearing aid care.
“Our mission is to increase the number of patients receiving care while allowing audiologists to work in more flexible environments with less overhead. The entire Lively team is excited to increase access to hearing care and to help our friends, family, and the millions of people in this country that lack access to hearing aids.”
–Adam Karp, Lively CEO
Lively was co-founded by Adam Karp, Elad Kolet, most recently at Facebook, and Nicole Cadoret, most recently at Blink Health. The company lists among its staff and advisors, familiar and respected names in Audiology, such as Harvey Abrams, PhD, Bopanna Ballachanda, PhD, James Hall, III, PhD, Craig Kasper, AuD and Christina Callahan, AuD.
Lively was founded out of Redesign Health, a New York-based venture studio focused on building consumer health businesses that improve access and elevate patient experience. “Lively is well positioned to help the large number of people suffering from untreated hearing loss. The ease and affordability they bring to the process of buying hearing aids, coupled with their commitment to work with audiologists throughout the hearing care process, represents a meaningful step in addressing hearing loss in this country,” said Brett Shaheen, CEO of Redesign Health.
According to the announcement, Lively offers the following to its customers:
- Smart hearing aids that pair with smartphone or tablet. iPhone/iPad users can stream calls and music to Lively hearing devices via Bluetooth.
- The Lively mobile app pairs with Lively hearing aids so clients can discreetly control volume and select presets for the office, restaurants, traffic, and other environments.
- Hearing aids can be adjusted from home. Clients get hearing consultations and audiologist tunings at home via virtual appointments. Their audiologist will remotely adjust the hearing devices to address any issue.
- Hear sound from any direction – The hearing aids work together with the ears’ natural acoustics to enhance clarity, send more sound information to a user’s brain, and improve sound localization.
- The hearing aids reduce unwanted background noise, so users can better understand every word.
For more information, visit the Lively website here.
Source: Lively
One question: The respected researchers and audiologists, including a professor at Texas Tech and James Hall, promote evidence based practice. How will aided testing such as real ear measures and/or sound field measures using speech in noise be performed? It is Texas law that aided testing be performed at a fitting. I don’t get it!
There will be no verification testing done here. They’re selling resound 3D 5 technology. Even after I deliver the Quattro 7’s often times I have to make many changes to the settings after I do live speech mapping.
From their descriptions the Lively aids sound identical to my Resounds and the app is the same. Is lively just having their aids custom manufactured by Resound? my aids are a few years old, has technology improved considerably in the past few years?
Who cares about best practices when there’s money to be made? 😉
There are so many conflicting statements on line about which hearing aid is best. Makes you wonder if they paid to get these stories posted!
who checks for the ears for wax problems?