Eargo Hearing Aids

Empowering the world to hear life to the fullest.

About Us

We believe people shouldn’t feel that they need a hearing aid. They should feel that they want one.

We're Eargo. We’re on a mission to empower customers to feel good and make hearing easy. We are a company made up of ENT surgeons, industry professionals, tech geeks and dreamers working tirelessly to change hearing health, every day. Over 48 million Americans currently experience hearing loss and 80% of them do nothing about it. Their denial has many different shades, but more often than not it’s related to social stigma and cost. We want to change that… we stand united in our belief that people should be able to hear life to the fullest, without compromising their lifestyle, appearance or finances. Because the world is full of great things to hear, and we want to be invited into yours.

Our Management Team

Christian Gormsen

Chief Executive Officer

Growing up across the world, Christian dreamed about a career in the NBA, but alas that was not to be. So, he decided on a wildly successful career in the hearing health and professional services industry instead. Over two decades, Christian has been instrumental in growing the hearing health and professional services market for leading global companies. We lured him from Copenhagen with the promise of a try-out with the Golden State Warriors. He still thinks this is happening, we haven’t told him the sobering truth yet. Shhh!

Raphael Michel

Founder, Chairman, Chief Strategy Officer

Raphael is our raison d’etre (that’s reason for being in French). He boasts an impressive career as a medical device exec and holds degrees from schools less humble people shamelessly namedrop (Heck, how can we resist: École Polytechnique, Stanford and UC Berkeley Haas School of Business). He enjoys carving mountains with his skis, beach lounging in short shorts, and building cardboard or spaceships with his kids (or so he says). And he’s the inventor of 66 patents, but don’t bring up the Ear Cleaning Apparatus over lunch.

Tim Trine

Chief Technology Officer

Tim is relentless in carving out our tech future. With more than two decades of experience in the hearing health industry, Tim’s R&D, product and engineering expertise will ensure we are always pushing the limits of innovation in hearing technology. When not in the office, Tim can be found on any fresh powdered summit practicing his airplane turns and taunting posse's with his lightning quick "11"s.

Bill Brownie

Chief Customer Operations Officer

As a car enthusiast, Bill believes that the drive is the best part of the journey and what drives Bill is the customer experience. As the CEO of HearingPlanet, the most successful internet-focused retailer of hearing aids, he was driven to bring transparency and value to those with hearing needs. Now he’s parked his car in our garage and is driven every day to supercharge our customer experience and kick it into overdrive. OK, that’s enough car analogies, time to motor on!

Our Brain Trust

Florent Michel, MD

Founder

Florent is the father of so many incredible things (cue the inspirational movie soundtrack). He's the inventor of Flexi Fibers, which gave birth to Eargo, and the father of another founder, Raphael. His practice as an ENT surgeon has been ranked #2 in France for quality of care, having helped over 10,000 patients (that must be some waiting room). He skis. He cycles. He travels to exotic destinations. He loves building models in his workshop and fly-fishing in fashionable hip waders. And he ties his own fishing flies, which inspired his inventing Flexi Fibers in the first place.

Daniel Shen

Founder, Chief Clinical & Science Officer

Daniel is a Founder and the Chief Clinical & Science Officer of Eargo. Brilliant, logical, curious, he’s our Mr. Spock, but way more fun at parties. Daniel is a lifelong entrepreneur who’s co-founded three medical device companies and holds numerous patents. Plus, he holds degrees from MIT and studied medicine at Stanford. He’s also an avid scuba diver and kite boarder, so we’re assuming he can swim. Leading our Clinical Research department, he’s ensuring that Eargo boldly goes where no hearing aid has gone before…we’re waiting for him to invent di-lithium crystals.

Bret Herscher, Ph.D

Chief Technical Officer

Bret brings over three decades of expertise in medical device and consumer product innovation to Eargo. Prior to joining us, he did advance radio frequency engineering and microelectronics for several top medical device clients and the US government. In other words, he’s the real deal. And there’s more, he has a PhD in RF Engineering from Cambridge with a minor in fish & chips. Away from the office, you just might find Bret using a donkey stick to make the most of his chicken loop on the water (he’s also a world-class kite boarder).

Our Investors

Eargo is fortunate to be backed by some of the leading venture capital firms on planet Earth.

NEA is a global venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. With approximately $13 billion in committed capital, NEA invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages in a company’s lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firm's long track record of successful investing includes more than 195 portfolio company IPOs and more than 320 acquisitions.

Maveron was founded in 1998 by Dan Levitan and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and the firm has offices in Seattle and San Francisco. Maveron is a trendspotter in finding enduring brands with potential seeds of greatness and their expertise is in discovering passionate entrepreneurs who are ready to disrupt industries, displace incumbents, and establish market leading consumer businesses. Maveron investments include eBay, Shutterfly, August, Everlane, General Assembly, and Earnest.

Nan Fung Life Sciences, part of Nan Fung Group, is a global investment platform focusing on life sciences. Leveraging on the Group’s strong capital base and long term commitment to the area, the company strives to become the ideal partner for scientists, entrepreneurs, corporations and investors in the life science space. Through direct investments and fund investments Nan Fung Life Sciences covers the full spectrum of the industry (including therapeutics, medical devices and diagnostics) across different development stages. Nan Fung Life Sciences is starting to build significant presence in the US and Greater China.

Other investors in Eargo include Charles and Helen Schwab, the Dolby Family Fund, Crosslink Capital, Birchmere Ventures, Montage Ventures, Red Sea Ventures, and Peterson Ventures. Our investors provide strategic support for our management and advisory teams, which include executives from disruptive and innovative companies such as Apple, Yahoo, Logitech, GoPro, and pioneering hearing health companies including HearingPlanet, Phonak and GN ReSound.

You are in the right place if you need to get in touch with someone here at Eargo. Just let us know how we can help.