Legato launches from stealth with $12M and AI-powered hearing glasses
Legato, a hearing tech startup, emerged from stealth with $12M in funding and unveiled its AI hearing glasses, Legato Frames, expected to launch this fall.
Hearing loss affects an estimated 50 million adults in the United States, but only around 20% of those with diagnosed hearing loss seek treatment. Legato aims to close that gap by targeting people with mild to moderate hearing loss, which represents the largest segment of the hearing-loss population, the startup says.
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 later worked at EssilorLuxottica on smart eyewear efforts including Meta Ray-Bans, while Romine served as COO of hearing care company Audicus. The pair founded Legato in late 2024 after Trivedi came across technology that he believed could bring hearing technology and smart eyewear together.
“Our goal is to make hearing as ubiquitous as vision,” Trivedi said in an interview with TechCrunch. “It’s kind of a no-brainer that you go to an eye exam, you get your glasses, you wear your glasses, and you’re happy, and you do that for the rest of your life — and the idea of it being blurry again where you would just stop wearing them is not a consideration. I think that’s what we want to do with hearing: just make it something that people address and almost forget about.”
The company focused on making the glasses as small and lightweight as possible, developing a proprietary acoustic system, signal-processing stack, and mechanical architecture. Unlike traditional hearing aids that often use directional microphones, Legato uses an AI-powered system to differentiate between background noise and voices, amplifying only the voices. The goal is to make conversations clearer without creating the cognitively draining listening experience that can come with some traditional hearing aids.
“We wanted to deliver an experience that was unique,” Trivedi said. “So a form factor that’s really discreet and looks normal. They’re meant to feel and look like regular glasses. And so, we want it to be a product that’s effortless, easy to use, with kind of no controls that you need to fiddle with, works everywhere, works throughout your day, doesn’t need a ton of configuration, and just delivers you better hearing.”
The frames have an open-ear design, but sound isn’t 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.
The $12 million funding comes from Neotribe Ventures, Listen, and Village Global, and has largely gone toward product development and marketing efforts. When the frames launch later this year, Legato says they’ll be available through select eye-care providers nationwide and will “cost a fraction” of traditional hearing aids and may be eligible for vision insurance when purchased through an eye-care clinic.
“We have an opportunity to address a population with this product and build something that delivers without all the compromises of traditional hearing aids,” Trivedi said. “Hearing, at first glance, it’s not so much just like ‘I want to hear the TV better.’ It’s really about connection. When you hear better, you connect to the world. It reduces dementia risk and depression risk,” he continued.