Scout InsurTech Interview with Tuned

Tuned is a hearing health company that seeks to bring hearing health to everyone. Michael Fiedel sat with Head of Partnerships, Kali Pearce, to learn more about how Tuned is impacting the healthcare and hearing industries.

Who are your clients?

Our primary clients are employers offering hearing health benefits to their employees. The company distributes its product through carrier partners, such as Unum and Colonial Life, and sells the hearing benefit as part of a broader employee benefits package, which may include dental and vision care.

What does your product do?

Tuned offers a comprehensive hearing health benefit that includes a hearing test, virtual consultations with audiologists and access to modern hearing devices. The benefit is designed to move away from the traditional model of offering hearing aids as a discounted product, instead providing preventive care and enhancing accessibility. Employees can access hearing tests at home using their personal devices and receive consultations with audiologists to determine their needs. Depending on the results, employees may receive hearing enhancement devices, access to tinnitus relief applications, earplugs or hearing aids at very low prices or for free, depending on the chosen benefit package.

How much capital have you raised?

We’ve raised over $11 million in venture funding to date.

Was the company born from within or outside the industry?

Tuned was founded outside the insurance industry. The founders, leadership, and I come from mixed backgrounds in music, health, insurance, and technology, with a focus on improving access to hearing health care. The company sought to address a gap in the employee-benefits market, where hearing health was often overlooked, and to provide a more comprehensive, preventive approach to hearing care.

What growth metrics have you accomplished over the last 12 months?

Tuned has made significant strides in expanding its client base and solidifying relationships with major carriers. We’re actively selling our product through Colonial Life and Unum’s network. The business is growing, with increasing sales efforts and expanding relationships with agents and brokers.

Within your domain, what is the current challenge that the industry is facing?

One of the major challenges the hearing health industry faces is the lack of awareness and access to hearing care as part of employee benefits. Currently, only 11 percent of employees have access to hearing benefits, and many of the existing solutions focus on providing expensive hearing aids to people with severe hearing issues. At the same time, hearing is the most common sensory problem in the US, even more common than vision. On top of that, we have a serious issue of increased prevalence of hearing problems due to headphone use. We are addressing this challenge by offering a more comprehensive, accessible and preventive model that provides employees with the tools they need to maintain their hearing health.

How does Tuned take a unique approach to providing value?

Tuned's unique approach lies in offering a preventive model for hearing health that’s designed to be simple and accessible. Unlike other programs that just offer discounts on hearing aids, we provide a full suite of services, including hearing tests and consultations, to help employees address hearing issues before they become more severe. We also focus on making hearing devices more appealing by offering modern, stylish options that employees would actually want to wear, rather than traditional, medical-looking hearing aids.

What inspired the team to start this company?

Tuned was born out of our founder Danny Aronson’s personal experience with hearing loss. After being diagnosed with moderate hearing loss and told he didn’t qualify for hearing aids, Danny realized how broken and inaccessible the system was. That experience highlighted a huge gap: millions of people live with untreated hearing challenges, yet most don’t have affordable, easy access to care.

With a background in music and audio technology, Danny knew firsthand how critical hearing is, not just for musicians, but for anyone trying to thrive at work and in daily life. He and the team set out to make hearing care as accessible as dental and vision benefits, building Tuned as a new kind of telehealth platform powered by audiologists. As the founders did more listening and research, they noticed this major gap in healthcare for all ages and designed a way to more easily deliver hearing care at scale. Tuned’s mission is simple: to make high-quality hearing care available at scale, delivered through employers and benefits plans, so no one has to navigate this journey alone.

Can you share any goals for the next 12 months?

Our primary goals for the next 12 months include scaling the business by onboarding more employers and expanding carrier partnerships. We are also focused on continuing to grow the market share in the employee benefits space, particularly by enhancing our product offerings.

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