About Us - freecle Inc.

COMPANY

Head Office: 1F rainbowbldg, 2-20-13 Shimomeguro, Meguro-Ku, Tokyo, 153-0064, Japan

Support Company: FreakOut Holdings, inc.
MITSUI SUMITOMO INSURANCE Venture Capital Co.,Ltd.　etc.

Business Description: - Develop and offer audio equipment
We offer "able" series, hearable devices helping to solve hearing issues of hearing-impaired people, auditory processing disorder patients and teleworkers.

- Licensing of intellectual property
We provide licenses of our original technologies, such as Communication Focus technology that cut noise except in a specific direction, the world's finest quality bone conduction speakers, etc.

- Original equipment manufacturer of audio equipment
We manufacture audio equipment (earphones) with affiliated factories in Japan and abroad on commission.

OUR HISTORY

2017: April / freecle Inc. was founded

Began developing “sound pick-up” technologies to help people expand their audibility.

June / Patent applied

Searched more than 1,000 existing patents and research papers on speech signal processing. Interviewed experts and college professors and applied for patent on sound pick-up processing technology.

October / Withdrew the patent application

As a result of the experiment, we gave up on bringing a real-time personal identification technology to a practical use.

2018: January / Entered the market for people with hearing loss

After the team members learnt about the CEO’s grandmother who suffers the hearing difficulty,
the team made a decision to entered the market for people with hearing loss.

May / Re-submitted 3 patent applications.

Re-investigated/Recollected the patent ideas that was once given-up.
Took a look at the time difference of between each sound the microphone picks up, we invente.

June / Interviewed the users

Conducted weekly hearing test and applied the feedback from the customers with hearing difficulty to further improve the technology.

August / Funded by the City of Tokyo and the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency

Received funds from both the City of Tokyo and the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency for our unique/original technology and its social significance.

October / Started crowdfunding

Successfully collected funds that surpassed by 881% of the original goal.

November / First appearance on a Japanese TV show

Our CEO, Sosuke Kubo, “Akira Ikegami and 100 Japanese CEOs!”

2019: April / Completed a major funding round

Allocated new shares to third parties that conducts CVC investment,
such as MITSUI SUMITOMO INSURANCE Venture Capital Co.,Ltd.

June / Selected as a supporting venture by the city of Tokyo

Selected as the 8th batch of venture companies of ASAC, Aoyama Start-up Acceleration Center, run by the Metropolitan government of Tokyo.

August / Obtained funding support from the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency

Received fund from the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency for two consecutive years.

September / Completed making sample for mass production

Completed production trial in Shenzhen, China.

October / Started planning mass production at a Japanese factory.

Changed production factory from China to Saitama, Japan as a result of prioritizing quality and safety of the products.

November / Decided to join CES 2020 as an exhibitor (Recommended by JETRO, Japan External Trade Organization)

Passed a selection race by the host of JETRO・CES which offered us opportunity to exhibit at the CES 2020 JAPAN booth.

December / 2019: Began Releasing the products

Started the release of the able series via our “EC site”

2020: July / Prototype able glass was completed

Our original an eyeglass-type hearable device was born.

September / Mass-produced able aid was completed

It passed various tests and end products were completed.

October / Started to ship the products

The products were delivered to the supporters of our crowdfunding one by one.

Please use the inquiry form for inquiries about our products (able series), recruitment, media coverage, etc.