{"id":657530,"date":"2026-08-26T14:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T14:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/657530\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T14:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T14:03:13","slug":"hearing-tech-startup-legato-emerges-from-stealth-with-12m-and-a-peek-at-its-ai-hearing-glasses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/657530\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearing tech startup Legato emerges from stealth with $12M and a peek at its AI hearing glasses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hearing loss affects an estimated 50 million adults<\/a> in the United States, but only around 20%<\/a> of those with diagnosed hearing loss seek treatment. Legato<\/a>, a new hearing tech company, aims to close that gap.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The startup is emerging from stealth on Wednesday with $12 million in funding and a first look at its AI hearing glasses, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The glasses, called Legato Frames, integrate the company\u2019s patented hearing-assistance technology into the arms of eyewear frames. Legato Frames are expected to launch later this fall.<\/p>\n

Legato was founded by Mehul Trivedi and Steve Romine, who bring extensive experience in wearables and hearing care from Bose, where Trivedi led the creation of Bose Frames and Romine ran the hearing aids division. Trivedi left Bose to work at EssilorLuxottica, where he led smart eyewear efforts and worked on the Meta Ray-Bans, while Romine went on to serve as COO of hearing care company Audicus.<\/p>\n

After spending years at larger companies, Trivedi took some time off to explore the intersection of hearing technology and smart eyewear. During that time, Trivedi came across technology he believed could bring the two together, so he contacted Romine and the pair founded Legato in late 2024.<\/p>\n

\"\"Image Credits:<\/strong>Legato \/<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to make hearing as ubiquitous as vision,\u201d Trivedi said in an interview with TechCrunch. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a no-brainer that you go to an eye exam, you get your glasses, you wear your glasses, and you\u2019re happy, and you do that for the rest of your life \u2014 and the idea of it being blurry again where you would just stop wearing them is not a consideration. I think that\u2019s what we want to do with hearing: just make it something that people address and almost forget about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legato is targeting people with mild to moderate hearing loss, which represents the largest segment of the hearing-loss population, the startup says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company started with the goal of making hearing care more accessible by addressing the cost, comfort, and stigma associated with traditional hearing aids. Legato set out to make the glasses as small and lightweight as possible, and developed a proprietary acoustic system, signal-processing stack, and mechanical architecture to achieve it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Legato co-founders Mehul Trivedi (left) and Steve Romine (right)Image Credits:<\/strong>Legato \/<\/p>\n

Traditional hearing aids often use directional microphones to focus on sounds coming from a particular direction, which works well in quiet settings but can be difficult in noisy environments, such as restaurants. Legato takes a different approach by using an AI-powered system to differentiate between background noise and voices, amplifying only the voices. <\/p>\n

The goal is to make conversations clearer without creating the cognitively draining listening experience that can come with some traditional hearing aids.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to deliver an experience that was unique,\u201d Trivedi said. \u201cSo a form factor that\u2019s really discreet and looks normal. They\u2019re meant to feel and look like regular glasses. And so, we want it to be a product that\u2019s effortless, easy to use, with kind of no controls that you need to fiddle with, works everywhere, works throughout your day, doesn\u2019t need a ton of configuration, and just delivers you better hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the frames have an open-ear design, sound isn\u2019t broadcast to people around you. They feature a dual-speaker system that directs sound toward the wearer while canceling sound that escapes, reducing sound by 99% just a few inches away from the ear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Image Credits:<\/strong>Legato \/<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s funding, which is from Neotribe Ventures, Listen, and Village Global, has largely gone toward product development, along with marketing efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have an opportunity to address a population with this product and build something that delivers without all the compromises of traditional hearing aids,\u201d Trivedi said. \u201cHearing, at first glance, it\u2019s not so much just like \u2018I want to hear the TV better.\u2019 It\u2019s really about connection. When you hear better, you connect to the world. It reduces dementia risk and depression risk,\u201d he continued. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s impactful hearing health factors associated with better hearing. We\u2019ve got a product that lives on people for 16 hours that is trusted to help them with their hearing and their vision, and we\u2019d love to continue helping them in every way we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the frames launch later this year, Legato says they\u2019ll be available through select eye-care providers nationwide and will \u201ccost a fraction\u201d of traditional hearing aids and may be eligible for vision insurance when purchased through an eye-care clinic.<\/p>\n

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hearing loss affects an estimated 50 million adults in the United States, but only around 20% of those…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[261],"tags":[9349,291,289,290,18,277941,19,17,82254,82],"class_list":["post-657530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-accessibility","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-eire","tag-hearing-aid","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-smartglasses","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117162188644491314","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}