Doppler Labs was a San Francisco-based audio technology company. Founded in 2013 in New York City, the company's mission was to make computing more immersive and human. The company designed and manufactured in-ear computing technology, including earplugs and wireless smart earbuds.
History
Doppler Labs was co-founded by Noah Kraft and Fritz Lanman. Kraft had previously worked in the entertainment industry, and was employed as a strategic consultant for Google working for John Hanke on a mobile game called Ingress. Kraft also worked for Lyor Cohen during the founding of 300 Entertainment. Lanman was an executive at Microsoft and a prominent angel investor. In July 2015, Doppler raised $17 million in Series B funding bringing the company's total funding to over $50 million. The round was led by The Chernin Group, Wildcat Capital Management, and Acequia Capital and included luminary investors like Henry Kravis, David Geffen, Blake Krikorian, Dan Gilbert, David Bonderman and Barry Sternlicht. Doppler Labs first product was DUBS Acoustic Filters, high-techear plugs designed that use a proprietary 17-piece physical acoustic filter system to reduce the sound pressure at different frequencies while maintaining acoustical fidelity. In July 2016, Doppler Labs Labs launched Here Active Listening at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and in 2017 launched its flagship productHere One, a pair of wireless smart earbuds that allow users to selectively filter ambient sound, stream music, and amplify speech. It can also be used to take phone calls and selectively filter certain sounds, such as background noise. Here One has been called the world’s first in-ear computer. In March 2017, Doppler Labs sued Bose for trademark infringement of their Here Buds trademark. The company supported the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017. On November 1, 2017, Doppler Labs announced that the company would be winding down operations, and officially closed on December 1. The company cited problems raising additional Series C funding as the reason for the company shutting down. Wired wrote that the company unsuccessfully explored options to stay afloat including partnership, investment, and acquisition from companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook. It was preparing to launch its next product, Here Two, in 2018.
Products
Before voice assistants or true wireless technology were prevalent, Doppler Labs envisioned that computing would move onto the body and into the ear and that voice would become a more primary interface for how humans interact with technology. With Apple’s removal of the headphone jack, the launch of the AirPods, and the prevalence of Alexa, the smart earbud category that Doppler helped create was expected to become a $40 billion industry by 2020. The company develops and distributes the Here One Wireless Smart Earbuds, a pair of wireless 3-in-1 earbuds that combine premium audio streaming, smart noise cancellation, and speech enhancement into a single form factor, as well as DUBS Acoustic Filters high-tech earplug. The company previously developed and released the predecessor to Here One called Here Active Listening, which was originally launched on Kickstarter. Doppler Labs has announced and demonstrated future product features, including real-time language translation and its “machine hearing” system.
