Intelligent Hearing-aid Maker, Eartech, Secures Large Pre-A Round Financing, Joined by Xiaomi Ventures
Recently, Eartech, a smart hearing aid maker, received tens of millions of yuan of Pre-A round financing, with investors including Qingsong Fund, Xiaomi Ventures, Shunwei Capital, and Huaxin Capital. Zhicheng Capital served as financing consultant.
Eartech is a medical device company dedicated to the development of smart hearing testing and hearing aid systems. The company was established on July 21, 2017, with a registered capital of 1,492,900 yuan. The company’s legal representative is Chen Fei.
Su Wei, founding partner of Qingsong Fund, said that the number of hearing-impaired individuals in China is increasing, but the market of hearing-aids is far lower than expected. The main reason is that imported hearing-aids are expensive and rely on offline stores for testing. However, another type of low-cost hearing-aid has poor user experience and a higher return rate.
Eartech, led by well-known experts from Tsinghua University, the Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, and Tianjin University, is a benefit to hundreds of millions of hearing-impaired people.
With the vision of “let loved ones hear”, Eartech allows users to complete an online listening test on their own through the company’s smartphone app. Users can then purchase suitable devices both online and offline. At present, Eartech’s hearing-aids are sold at 1,000 to 5,000 yuan.
According to the WHO’s 2021 World Hearing Report, more than 1.5 billion people worldwide are experiencing to varying degrees hearing loss, of which about 430 million need treatment. In China alone, about 100 million of those people need professional treatment.
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The scale of China’s medical device market has maintained steady growth in recent years. According to iiMedia Research data, the overall market size of medical devices in China has increased from 255.6 billion yuan in 2014 to 530.4 billion yuan in 2018, with an average annual growth rate of about 20%. It is estimated that its market size will exceed 900 billion yuan by 2022.