Doppler Labs
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Doppler Labs was a San Francisco-based audio technology company founded in 2013 by Noah Kraft, Fritz Lanman, and Dan Wiggins. It built in-ear computing products: DUBS acoustic ear filters, the Here Active Listening system, and its flagship Here One wireless smart earbuds, priced at $299, which could selectively filter ambient sound, stream music, amplify speech, and take phone calls. The company raised over $74 million in venture funding and at its peak employed about 75 people.
02 / Doppler Labs FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
On November 1, 2017, Doppler Labs announced it would wind down, closing officially on December 1, 2017. The company said it could not raise the Series C funding needed to develop its next hardware product. Reporting on the shutdown noted that it had explored partnership, investment, and acquisition options with Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook without success. Its $299 Here One earbuds launched in early 2017 just as Apple released AirPods at $159, and the capital-intensive economics of consumer hardware left no room to iterate after the product failed to sell.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Company founded
Doppler Labs was founded.
- Operations ended
Doppler Labs ended operations.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
The company announced on November 1, 2017 that it would wind down operations, and closed officially on December 1, 2017.
- 02
Here One customer support ran through the end of December 2017; buyers within 30 days of purchase could return the earbuds for a refund.
- 03
In 2018, Dolby bought most of the company's remaining IP assets.
- 04
No formal bankruptcy or public creditor settlement was disclosed.