Doppler Labs

Hearing loss affects 1.5 billion people worldwide. Cost and access to an audiologist for tuning the hearing aids over months are the leading challenges.Doppler Labs’ mission is to equip hearing impaired people around the world with affordable best-of-class solutions to let them control their own hearing health.We identified the need early on, around 2010. One of our founders uses hearing aids, and over a lunch was complaining about having to - once again - visit the audiologist to get the aids working right. We realized that it was a common problem - repeated visits and high costs. So we set out to solve this issue. From that lunch we set our mission: to develop a means for anyone, at any time and any place, to tune their own hearing aids in minutes rather than months. Over the course of several years, the founders developed and patented an innovative means of addressing this challenge. They followed with extensive trials, led by a Ph.D. audiologist and engineering professionals. After years of development, the Aurasen system – now operating as Doppler Labs – was finished. Doppler Labs’ system allows anyone to simply program the included FDA certified clinical grade hearing aids in as little as 5 minutes. Anywhere, any time. Doppler Labs’ system enables the user to program up to 8 hearing profile settings optimized for a variety of situations such as restaurants, commuting, business environment, recreational events, and more. With a very low cost of entry and a small monthly subscription, Dopplers state of the art hearing aid solution is by far the most affordable and easy to use clinical grade hearing system available. In the US alone: 13% of the adult population have hearing loss, while only 24% of those with hearing loss make use of hearing aids. While a very successful domestic US channel is core to our plan, there remains a significant absence of audiologists in most overseas countries. For example, India has fewer than 2000 registered audiologists; Mexico less than 2000. Existing hearing aid solutions are not sold to these markets due to the lack of existing sales channels – audiologists. While audiologists would benefit equally from Doppler Lab’s solution by serving more clients more efficiently - our solution is able to eliminate the need for an audiologist, allowing us to address underserved regions worldwide for mild to moderate hearing loss. With 80% of the 1.5 billion affected by hearing loss living in countries with little to no audiologist accessibility, we believe we are uniquely positioned to acquire a significant share of that immense 1.2 billion person market.

Dan Wiggins
Founder, CEO
Dan is a recognized expert in acoustics. A prolific engineer and inventor, Dan has 36 issued utility patents to date, and over 100 consumer products launched for brands including Microsoft, Polycom, SONOS, Masimo, and Dolby. Dan is the creative force behind the technology that powers Doppler Labs’ system, and was intimately involved in the entire process.



Mike O’Brien
CRO
Mike has an extensive career leading successful GTM efforts across various technologies over 30+ years. Notably Mike’s focus has been around disruptive technologies displacing inefficient systems and solutions to greatly improved user outcomes and efficiencies. Mike has extensive experience in successful startup corporations having founded 3 of his own, all with successful outcomes displacing industry giants including IBM and Cisco among others.




Jim Humphries
COO
Jim brings decades of executive leadership to the team: vision casting, plan implementation, P&L responsibility in both the for profit and nonprofit organizations. Jim spent 9 years in purchasing and supply chain management for Kmart where he co-architected the Quick Distribution System. Jim then spent 8 years in purchasing and divisional management at Walmart where he earned the Buyer of the Year designation and was named by Sam Walton as “one of the best of the best merchants.” After Walmart, Jim joined Costco where he spent 10 years in central merchandising as well as regional VP in Northern California Regional. Since that time Jim has served the nonprofit community in several board capacities.